China’s rare-earth magnet exports to US hit six-month high after trade deal

[BEIJING] China’s flows of rare-earth magnets to the US continued to recover in July, with volumes rising 76 per cent month on month, after Beijing agreed to normalise exports as part of its trade truce with Washington.

The Asian nation shipped 619 tonnes of rare-earth permanent magnets to the US, up from a low of 46 tonnes in May, when the two countries were still locked in a damaging tit-for-tat trade war. China put export controls on the components, weaponising the nation’s 90 per cent grip on global production to squeeze US factories and pile pressure on US President Donald Trump.

Rare-earth magnets are used in everything from cars to dishwashers and fighter jets, and proved to be Beijing’s most potent weapon in the trade standoff. Following talks in Geneva and London this summer, Chinese negotiators pledged to normalise flows. Earlier this month, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that China had made partial progress.

China’s export controls targeted seven of the 17 rare-earth elements, but also covered magnets that typically contain just a tiny amount of the restricted material. That snarled up supplies to all nations while China’s bureaucracy and buyers worldwide adjusted to the new regime.

The magnet crisis spurred the Trump administration to pursue a more aggressive policy on building a domestic rare-earths supply chain. In July, the Department of Defense agreed to supply deals and a US$400 million investment in MP Materials, for now the sole US rare-earths miner. The company’s shares have since surged more than 130 per cent. BLOOMBERG