China's October 2025 export controls on rare earths have been suspended only through short reprieves, each following American concessions, according to a new Lawfare analysis. Even during a truce, Beijing has kept supplies tight, and in June it placed MP Materials and USA Rare Earth—the two firms central to U.S. plans for an alternative supply chain—on an export control list. The authors argue that Washington's rebuilding effort lacks the scale, durability, and political patience needed for a decade-long project.
The piece traces the dependency to deliberate corporate decisions, not simple neglect. Until the late 1980s, the U.S. led the world in rare earth production, but environmental costs and falling profits shuttered Mountain Pass, while General Motors sold its magnet unit, Magnequench, to a Chinese-backed consortium in 1995. Economically, these moves made sense: a dirty, low-margin business migrated to a state willing to subsidize it. But China's motives were never purely economic, and it now controls a chokepoint that can disrupt trillions in global GDP despite the entire rare earth oxide market being worth under $10 billion.
The authors argue that capital markets and subsidies cannot solve a binary strategic risk. They propose a contingent convertible security that would convert into ownership if Beijing weaponizes supply, aligning private incentives with national security. Without such an instrument, they warn, the U.S. will remain trapped in a cycle of short-term reprieves and strategic dependency. The article is written by three authors working at the intersection of finance and national security, and it reflects their firsthand observation of repeated budget fights and Chinese statecraft. No other sources are cited, so the analysis stands as a single, unifiedWe need to write a short article for