China Expands Rare Earth Export Controls, Prompting Western Supply Chain Response

China's Ministry of Commerce announced expanded export controls over key rare-earth elements and related processing equipment this month, marking a strategic tightening of Beijing's dominance (https://ibn.fm/uyRJa). The new rules place five additional rare-earth elements—holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium—under license controls while applying new restrictions to dozens of pieces of processing equipment and technologies used in rare earth mining and refining. China produces more than 90% of the world's processed rare earths and rare-earth magnets, and the regime will bar exports to overseas defense users while applying stricter review for semiconductor-linked users.

The effect rippled through financial markets, with shares of rare-earth-mining companies jumping on concerns that supply chains for electric vehicles, wind turbines and defense systems may face bottlenecks. Data from Chinese customs revealed exports in September decreased by roughly 31% compared with August, signaling how serious the disruption has already been (https://ibn.fm/V8EXt). These export-license changes are tied directly to global geopolitics, with Beijing leveraging its control over critical minerals as part of broader negotiations with Washington (https://ibn.fm/UlEgQ). This supply-chain risk underscores the urgency for the United States to develop independent sources of essential metals.

For decades, the U.S. has been almost entirely reliant on imports for rare earths, especially for downstream processing. Ucore Rare Metals is positioning itself as a key enabler of Western supply-chain sovereignty. In May 2025 the company announced an $18.4 million funding agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to scale its RapidSX rare-earth separation technology toward commercial production at its Strategic Metals Complex in Alexandria, Louisiana (https://ibn.fm/4StCi). RapidSX is a modular, feed-stock-agnostic separation platform designed to outperform conventional solvent-extraction methods in speed, footprint and cost.

The company followed up that announcement in September with a report that it had obtained Defense Priorities & Allocations System DO-B8 rating for its U.S. project, prioritizing industrial supply-chain deliveries under the Defense Production Act (https://ibn.fm/Bvdr9). This indicates its strategic role in national-security supply chains. Ucore has also taken steps to secure feedstock and expand partnerships, critical in the rare-earth arena where refining capacity represents the primary choke point.

In August, the company executed a 10-year nonbinding letter of intent with Critical Metals Corp. of Greenland to secure heavy rare-earth concentrate feedstock for the Strategic Metals Complex. The company then entered a binding strategic partnership with Metallium Limited to integrate flash-joule-heating feed-stock upgrades with RapidSX downstream refining, creating a complete feed-stock-to-oxide corridor (https://ibn.fm/DIdSM). Rare-earth elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium power the magnets used in electric-vehicle motors, wind-turbine generators, missile guidance systems and aerospace actuators.

China controls approximately 90% of global processing capacity and up to 85% of magnet manufacturing, according to market analysts (https://ibn.fm/gjtvS). Without a domestic pathway from mining through refining to magnet production, the U.S. and its allies remain exposed to supply shocks and strategic manipulation. Ucore's approach addresses this exposure by bringing modular separation capacity to North America, creating the infrastructure that has been missing, especially the refining and separation layer downstream of mining. By manufacturing in Louisiana, sourcing from allied feed-stock jurisdictions and avoiding reliance on Chinese equipment and supply chains, the company aligns with the West's push for resilience in critical minerals. In early October 2025 Ucore reaffirmed that its equipment sourcing for the Strategic Metals Complex does not rely on Chinese-origin components, a step that helps insulate the project from Beijing's latest export-control regime (https://ibn.fm/vJHhq).