美国稀土战略一周年：离摆脱中国依赖还有多远

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This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily. Reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast with Carol Masser and [music] Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week [music] weekend podcast.

Carol is on assignment this week. It was a busy week where geopolitical tensions certainly remained front and center this as the standoff between the US and Iran just continued to rattle global shipping in the oil market. Meanwhile, the latest readings on CPI and PPI suggest that the impact of the energy price shock from the Iran war continued to fade in July, possibly giving the Fed more room to weigh inflation pressures as they meet in Jackson Hole just a little later this month.

As always, check out the latest updates and coverage on the Bloomberg Terminal and at bloomberg.com. This weekend, we're bringing you a special deep dive into the world of rare earths and critical minerals. It's a race that's been sparked recently by the White House's new multi-billion dollar push to wean the US off supply chains that have been dominated by China. We do that with a great rotation of guests, including a full hour with Joe Doe.

He's Bloomberg News senior economic statecraftraft reporter who specializes in minerals and mining. Plus, we're joined by Gary Evans, the president and CEO of US Antimony, who mentioned to us that he would be open to selling up to 20% of his company to the US government. All that to come. We begin with the global landscape of the rare earths market one year after China's export restrictions on heavy rare earths and permanent magnets triggered rapid disruptions across the US, Canadian and European defense and industrial supply chains.

So we wanted to touch base with an expert on these materials and why they're continuing to play such a pivotal role. For that we not only tapped into the expertise of Joe Doe, but we were joined by Graceland Baskerin, director of the critical mineral security program at the center for strategic and international studies. Also joining us this hour, Christina Kino, managing editor of the Markets Live blog on the Bloomberg terminal.

We're talking to both of you and our other guests today because Joe, as you reminded us, it's been about a year since the US kicked off that critical mineral statecraft agenda. There was that unprecedented $400 million equity investment in MP materials. I can't believe it's been a year since then. Um, here we are a year later. Is the US any closer to weaning itself off of relying on foreign partners or adversaries for critical minerals and rare earths.

Well, I um spent a lot of time writing about this and uh one person I like to often ask this question to happens to be our current guest. [laughter]

Oh, perfect. Is that why you brought Gracyn Basker into us?

I'm I'm hoping she might have some answers for us.

All right. She's director of critical mineral security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Gracelyn, you join us from all over the world, and we're grateful for your time this afternoon and every afternoon that you do join us. Is the US any closer to no longer relying on partners and adversaries for rare earth and critical minerals?

First of all, thank you so much for having me and thank you for the phenomenal work Joe does. He is reliably also one of my sounding boards. So, it's a mutually beneficial relationship. Now, when I think about this question, I mean, I think there's two things we need to split out. Are we moving closer? Yes, we're moving closer. and the scale of the investments, the capabilities that are starting to come online. When China imposed restrictions in April 2025, uh we didn't have heavy rear earth separation capabilities outside, but slowly Malaysia came online, you know, but one of the things we have to remember is that we're still have a very long ramp to self-sufficiency.

As you know, recently the G7 put forth the goal of 60% not being more than 60% reliant on a single country outside of the G7. That's a pretty ambitious target. Japan's been working on that goal for 16 years and they are now approaching that 60% mark. So, we're getting closer, but we still have a long road to go.

You know, Graceland, um, we're 12 months removed since the, uh, USA rare, excuse me, USA rare earth, getting them all mixed up. MP materials announcement which really brought a shock I think to the market right to investors to companies to suddenly realize not only was this being talked about but the government was there to make happen what you were just describing. I'm wondering with the president's uh summit do do we feel like making some of the comments that he did is more kind of reminding people that the government's there uh or do we feel like he was sending some other type of message?

The number one message I took away from round table with President Trump, which also saw Secretary of State Rubio, Interior Secretary Bergam, Commerce Secretary Letic was that industrial policy is here and that the government is here to support companies working in our national interest. In addition to making substantial funding announcements, he talked about developing the next generation of workforce through federal dollars.

He talked a lot about onshoring those capabilities. So industrial policy once a word that both the left and the right kind of frowned on is being seen as vital to seeing American industry succeed.

Yeah. I mean very interesting Graceland that that concept of onshoring right and we've also heard about French shoring which is another term that has come up in the discussion over rare earths and you know do you think a lot of these uh investments outside the US is it ultimately more realistic than trying to build a fully domestic critical mineral supply chain absolutely there is not a country on earth maybe you know with the exception of China that has the geological resources the financial capital and the technical know how to do it alone.

And this is where, you know, at a time when it sometimes feel like American foreign policy now is America alone, critical minerals are an area from the very get-go that we have embraced international cooperation. And when you look at the rare earth supply chain alone over the course of the last year, you have seen substantial US support be announced with the Japanese, the Australians, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Brazil. And so these this is really a sign that the US does not intend to go at it alone.

And you know that partnership is going to be really crucial if we're going to reach that mine to manufactured good supply chain in any reasonable time frame.

You know Grson I I think in the first few months uh after the MP materials deal there was a genuine concern in um critical minerals circles that the US was going to go at loan. It was clear by the end of 2025 that that was not the case. But as you look back on the past 12 months, what sticks out to you as maybe the most underwhelming part of the critical minerals policy we've seen so far from the administration or something you think they really need to improve on moving forward?

I think one of the areas that's probably been the weakest are price floors. There is an acknowledgement that the problem we have today is not a political problem. It is an economic problem. It is how do we get projects outside of China to stay commercially viable? You saw a lot of discussion over the last year talking about instituting a price floor, but it's complicated, right? Because there's a principal problem that we can't seem to agree on even with our G7 counterparts, which is who pays for it.

Is this a a cost that the the the taxpayer bears, or is it a cost that t

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