Rare Earths

In an announcement yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice described a federal indictment against individual persons and a company accused of sending export-controlled defense-related technical data to China and unlawfully supplying the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) with Chinese-origin rare earth magnets for aviation systems and military items.

Last week, the Biden administration announced that a U.S. Commerce Department investigation "found that [Neodymium-iron-boron] magnet imports threaten national security," and that President Biden agreed with that determination. The Biden administration said it would take a number of actions to address the threat, but tariffs and quotas are not

A cybersecurity firm that tracks Chinese influence campaigns has reported on specific activity in the rare earth mining sector.

Last week, two members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced bipartisan legislation that "seeks to decrease America’s reliance on the Chinese Communist Party for rare-earth supplies and would enhance the Department of Defense’s rare-earth element reserves."

At a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing today on U.S.-China Competition in Global Supply Chains, there was a discussion of the reasons for China's rise in rare earth element production, as well as the current state of central government involvement in that sector.

Greenland Minerals A/S ("GMAS") has brought a contract-based ISDS complaint against the governments of Greenland (known as "Naalakkersuisut") and Denmark in response to a Greenland law that bans uranium prospecting, exploration, and exploitation, and which interferes with the company's Kvanefjeld rare earths project in southern Greenland.

The U.S. and Canadian governments have both held hearings and discussions, as well as taking specific actions, in recent weeks in response to China's dominance of the critical minerals market and with the objective of pushing forward with plans to develop their own supply chains in this area.