Spring 2012. Mountain Pass, California.

A single mine sat in the Mojave Desert, forty miles from the Nevada line. Workers posed for photos. Senators flew in for tours. This mine was going to end America's need for Chinese rare earths.

Two years before, China had cut rare earth exports to Japan after a clash near the Senkaku Islands. Prices shot up. Neodymium rose tenfold. Congress held hearings. The Pentagon raised alarms.

Money poured in. More than a billion dollars went to Molycorp, the company that owned Mountain Pass. The stock surged past $75. Magazine covers called it the dawn of American rare earths.

Three years later, Molycorp filed for bankruptcy.

They could dig the rocks out of the ground. But they could not turn them into metals. The hard part — the chemistry that splits brown dirt into a dozen elements — still ran through China. Every time.

The mine was never the problem. The middle was.

This week, the Pentagon bet half a billion dollars on the middle.

The Department of War signed a $500 million conditional loan commitment with Phoenix Tailings, a rare earth refiner in Woburn, Massachusetts. The money will build the Freedom Facility. It is a plant built to do one thing: take raw rare earth ore and turn it into finished metals. Not a gram goes through China.

The loan backs a roughly $1 billion push. Phoenix Tailings already runs two small plants — one in Burlington, Massachusetts, one in Exeter, New Hampshire — that turn rare earth oxides into metals. The Freedom Facility will be far bigger. It will take in concentrates, recycled materials, and secondary sources, then split it all into pure rare earth metals — both light and heavy. The kind that go into fighter jets, EV motors, and guided missiles.

Operations start in 2028.

That date matters. The rest of the chain is already in motion. MP Materials mines rare earths in California. USA Rare Earth is building a $1.2 billion magnet factory in South Carolina. But between the mine and the magnet, there is a gap. China fills it today. The Freedom Facility is built to fill it by 2028.

"Supporting domestic processing for critical minerals and rare earths is a key focus for OSC, and the rare earth midstream processing capabilities that Phoenix Tailings represents are key shortage areas that need to be rapidly addressed," said David Lorch, Director of the Office of Strategic Capital. He is right. America has spent years funding mines and magnet plants. The step between them — splitting raw ore into pure metals — has been the blind spot. China owns that step. And it is the step that killed Molycorp.

Phoenix Tailings is betting everything on filling that gap at home. One billion dollars. Four years. Against thirty years of Chinese work. That is the bet.

USA Rare Earth will spend $1.2 billion on a magnet plant in Cherokee County, South Carolina. The Blacksburg site will make up to 6,400 tonnes of NdFeB magnets per year — the kind inside every EV motor, wind turbine, and guided missile. First magnets roll off the line in April 2028. It is the company's third U.S. plant, after Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Wheat Ridge, Colorado. USA Rare Earth also locked in $1.6 billion from the Commerce Department this month. That is three plants, two federal deals, and a chain from mine to magnet — all on American soil.

Resouro Strategic Metals ran the numbers on its Tiros project in Brazil. They came back strong. After-tax value: $714.9 million. Rate of return: 44.2%. Upfront cost: just $191 million. The mine would run for 20 years at 500,000 tonnes a year, pulling out rare earth oxides and titanium. Tiros is one of the few projects outside China with heavy rare earth content — the same metals Western refiners will need. Resouro trades on the ASX under RAU and TSX Venture under RSM.

China's rare earth price index hit 260.9 on June 17. That is up 65% from early-2024 lows. Sounds clear. It is not. Rare Earth Exchanges ran a piece this week asking what these numbers really mean. The answer: China sets prices through state-run channels, not open markets. The figures show policy, not pure supply and demand. The real tell is the gap between what rare earths cost inside China and what they cost everywhere else. Neodymium runs about $122 per kilogram inside China and $245 outside. That spread is the tax the world pays for having no refining of its own.

Jack Lifton, Co-Chair, Critical Minerals Institute, InvestorNews
June 14, 2026

DYSPROSIUM

Every rare earth magnet has a weakness — heat. Push a neodymium magnet past 80°C and it starts to lose its grip. That is a problem inside an EV motor at full power. The fix is dysprosium. Add a small amount and the magnet holds up to 200°C and beyond. That is why every high-end motor on earth needs it. The price: $930.70 per kilogram outside China, up sharply since January. Most of the supply comes from southern China. The name comes from the Greek "dysprositos." It means "hard to get." It still is.

Beijing told Washington it will not lift its rare earth ban on Japan. The curbs cover magnets and processed materials. Japan is trying to build its own refining but still depends on China.

— Mining.com

Gina Rinehart bought a SpaceX stake worth more than $1 billion. She also took a 6% stake in Rare Earths Americas, a new U.S. miner. Rinehart now holds one of the largest rare earth portfolios outside China.

— Fortune

The DOE put $134 million behind two projects that pull rare earths from mine tailings, old electronics, and other waste — no new mines needed.

— Department of Energy

The latest report from InvestorNews says money in rare earths is finally moving from mining to refining. Jack Lifton, co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute, said this shift has been a long time coming.

— InvestorNews