November 15, 1975. Rambouillet, France.

Six heads of state gathered at the Château de Rambouillet for the first formal summit of what would become the G7. French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had organized the meeting in direct response to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, which had quadrupled oil prices and exposed how fragile Western economies were to a single resource controlled by an adversary. No one could fix the oil dependency overnight. But six leaders agreed, for the first time, that it needed to be fixed collectively.

Today, the 52nd G7 summit concludes in Évian — also France. It is closing with the most specific rare earth commitment the group has ever produced.

According to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the discussions, G7 leaders agreed at Évian that no single country should supply more than 60% of any G7 nation's critical mineral imports by 2030. Leaders also set plans to introduce binding quotas for companies in some industrial sectors — defense manufacturers in particular — and pledged to establish a platform combining recycling supply with new mining development.

The gap between that target and current reality is the story. Europe sources all of its heavy rare earth elements and 98% of its rare earth magnets from China. The United States records 100% net import reliance for heavy rare earth compounds and metals, per the USGS 2026 Mineral Commodity Summary. Reaching 60% from 100% in four years requires infrastructure that, in most cases, has not been built.

The summit also produced the week's second rare earth headline — not from Évian, but from Washington. The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital on Tuesday conditionally committed $500 million in long-term debt financing to Phoenix Tailings for the "Freedom Facility" — a midstream rare earth separation and metallization plant the Massachusetts-based company is targeting for 2028. Together with an additional $500 million in private capital, the Freedom Facility is a $1 billion bet on the midstream gap: the part of the rare earth supply chain between mine and magnet that the US has never had at commercial scale.

What the G7 could not agree to build was the permanent secretariat France proposed — an IEA-equivalent for rare earths. The Trump administration rejected the multilateral body and preferred bilateral supply agreements. The target exists. The institution to enforce it does not.

In 1975, the Rambouillet summit produced commitments without architecture. The architecture — the IEA, the strategic petroleum reserve, the coordinated release mechanisms — took years to build on top of the commitment. The G7 is at the same moment today, with a different resource and a narrower timeline.

Phoenix Tailings (Cambridge, MA) received a conditional $500 million loan from the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital on Tuesday — the federal anchor of a roughly $1 billion package to build the "Freedom Facility," a midstream rare earth separation and metallization plant targeting 2028. The company already operates a 200-metric-ton-per-year facility in Exeter, New Hampshire — currently the only standalone rare earth refining operation in the US capable of accepting feedstocks from mines, recycled products, coal fly ash, and industrial byproducts simultaneously. Backers include BMW and Sumitomo. The Freedom Facility will scale that model to handle diverse feedstocks and yield both light and heavy rare earth metals for defense and commercial magnet producers. OSC Director David Lorch: the rare earth midstream capabilities Phoenix represents are "key shortage areas that need to be rapidly addressed."

The Trump administration told G7 partners at Évian it would not support France's proposed permanent Critical Minerals Secretariat, according to diplomatic sources cited by Reuters, preferring fast bilateral supply agreements over a multilateral body. The split leaves a structural gap: the 60% concentration cap agreed this week has no enforcement mechanism and no permanent institution to coordinate member states toward it. France, which proposed the secretariat as a direct analog to the IEA it helped found in 1974, pushed for a joint statement with real economic bite on the summit's final day. What emerged is a target without a treaty — the same gap between commitment and architecture that has defined G7 rare earth policy since the first Critical Minerals Action Plan in 2025.

The Atlantic Council documented what the G7's 60% cap actually requires of Europe: starting from 100% heavy rare earth dependency and 98% magnet dependency on China, the bloc needs to identify, permit, fund, build, and commission sufficient ex-China supply by December 31, 2029. McKinsey, CRU Group, and Benchmark Minerals project that non-Chinese production of dysprosium and terbium will still meet less than one-fifth of global demand by 2035. The 60% cap is more ambitious than the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act, which set a 65% threshold in 2024. The gap between ambition and infrastructure is unchanged.

Nick Myers, CEO of Phoenix Tailings
April 30, 2025

ERBIUM

Erbium keeps the internet running at continental and transoceanic scale. Doped into optical fiber at concentrations of a few hundred parts per million, it amplifies light signals without converting them to electrical current — the technology known as an EDFA, or erbium-doped fiber amplifier. Every undersea cable, every long-haul backbone, every data center interconnect uses EDFAs at regular intervals. There is no viable substitute. Erbium also appears in surgical lasers and neutron-absorbing control rods. China processes roughly 90% of global erbium. It was not included in Beijing's April 2025 export controls — but every military communications network that depends on fiber optic links depends on erbium that comes from China.

The Atlantic Council's pre-summit analysis documented the baseline the G7's new 60% concentration cap is working against: Europe sources all of its heavy rare earth elements, 85% of its light rare earth elements, and 98% of its rare earth magnets from China. When Beijing tightened export licensing in October 2025, magnet exports fell by roughly three-quarters — and automotive manufacturers reduced production within weeks. The $1.5 trillion economic exposure figure Europe cited at Évian is not a projection. It reflects actual production losses that have already occurred.

— Atlantic Council

Analysis from McKinsey, CRU Group, and Benchmark Minerals projects that non-Chinese production of dysprosium and terbium — the two heavy rare earths most critical for heat-resistant NdFeB magnets in defense and EV applications — will still meet less than one-fifth of global demand by 2035. The 2030 target in the G7's 60% commitment covers all critical minerals, but the heavy rare earth subset faces the longest structural timeline. Lynas's Malaysian heavy RE output, MP Materials' Mountain Pass commissioning, and the IperionX Tennessee DFS together represent a fraction of what full market displacement from China would require.

— McKinsey / CRU Group / Benchmark Minerals

Crude oil prices dropped sharply on Monday following the US-Iran peace announcement, with Brent falling approximately 5% to around $83 per barrel and WTI declining below $80. Lower oil prices reduce shipping and energy costs for every rare earth mining and processing operation globally — from Lynas's Mt Weld concentrate shipments to the Mountain Pass-to-Fort Worth logistics chain. The sulfuric acid market, which had seen spot prices roughly double during the Hormuz closure, is also expected to normalize progressively over coming months as Middle Eastern sulfur exports resume.

— Reuters / World Reporter

The US Geological Survey's 2026 Mineral Commodity Summary records 100% net import reliance for heavy rare earth compounds and metals — meaning the US produces none of them commercially. The finding was cited at the G7 Évian summit as one of the key vulnerability data points. Phoenix Tailings' Exeter, New Hampshire facility began producing rare earth metals from diverse feedstocks in 2025, but at 200 metric tons per year it represents a small fraction of US defense and commercial demand. The USGS figure is the baseline against which the Freedom Facility and every other US rare earth investment is measured.

— US Geological Survey