Rare earth stocks soar as China tightens supply in trade escalation with Trump

Shares of rare earth elements companies surged on Monday as the United States and China engaged in escalatory measures in their trade dispute.

China recently announced tightened export controls on rare earth elements and similar technology. The further restrictions on rare earths are notable, as they are key inputs for technology that the U.S. needs to be competitive, including semiconductor chips and clean energy.

In response, shares of non-Chinese rare earth companies, including some that have struck deals or discussed terms with the federal government, were up quite a bit.

MP Materials, a U.S. mining company in which the Trump administration has taken an ownership stake, was up more than 21% Monday, while another domestic company, Energy Fuels Inc., rose 17.5%. USA Rare Earth Inc. was up more than 26%, while Critical Metals Corp surged a staggering 32%.

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China has dominated the rare earth market for years and accounts for about 80% of U.S. imports of rare earth metals and compounds. Demand for the metals is only growing as clean energy products such as wind turbines and electric cars, which use the metals, become more popular.

Last week, China imposed stricter export controls on rare earths. Beijing announced that technologies related to “rare earth mining, smelting, separation, metal smelting, the manufacturing of magnetic materials, and the recycling and utilization of rare earth secondary resources and their carriers” require permission for export.

U.S. financial markets plunged on Friday afternoon when, in response to China’s export restriction, Trump threatened a “massive” increase in tariffs against Beijing.

“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the ‘Magnets’ and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Trump added that he would consider other unspecified “countermeasures.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also cited those countermeasures on Monday.

“We have plenty of straight brute-force countermeasures we can pull,” Bessent said.

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The U.S. has sought to bolster its domestic critical mineral and rare earth supply chain to reduce its reliance on China. In July, the Department of War entered into a multimillion-dollar deal with MP Materials to help it boost domestic supply.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on Saturday that the War Department is seeking to boost its efforts to stockpile $1 billion worth of critical minerals.