Western defense secretaries and technology executives should keep a map pinned above their desks. It would show the global distribution of rare earth deposits, the 17 elements that make electric vehicles run, wind turbines spin, fighter-jet guidance systems lock onto their targets, and smartphones come to life. On that map, one color would dominate, the red of China.
China controls 85 percent of the world’s rare earth processing capacity. It has used that dominance to impose export restrictions on gallium, germanium, and graphite. Those limits are a stark reminder that any major disruption to rare earth supply chains, particularly any linked to Chinese export controls, would present a serious challenge for the U.S. and its allies. This is a strategic vulnerability of the first order.
The good news is that the map is changing. A wave of significant rare earth discoveries and development projects outside China is giving the U.S. and the West options that they have lacked for decades. The question is whether governments will find the will to use them.
Australia has led the way. Lynas Rare Earths, operating the Mount Weld mine in Western Australia, is the largest rare earth producer outside China. It has built processing facilities in Malaysia and is establishing a heavy rare earth processing operation in the U.S. This is the kind of end-to-end, allied-nation supply chain that Washington has been seeking for years. Canada’s Wicheeda project, held by Defense Metals, and Peak Rare Earths’ Ngualla project in Tanzania represent further nodes in an emerging non-China-based supply network.
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