China produces the entire world’s supply of samarium, a particularly obscure rare earth metal used almost entirely in military applications — the manufacture of magnets for missiles, fighter jets, etc. Samarium magnets can withstand temperatures hot enough to melt lead without losing their magnetic force. They are essential for withstanding the heat of fast-moving electric motors in cramped spaces like the nose cones of missiles.
Ministry of Commerce has begun issuing some licenses for magnets that include two of the restricted rare earths, dysprosium and terbium, to automakers in Europe and the US. But there has been no sign that China has approved exports of samarium, which has few civilian applications.
The main American user of samarium is Lockheed Martin, which puts about 50 pounds of samarium magnets in each F-35 fighter jet.
For more than a decade, the US has failed to develop an alternative to China’s supply of samarium.
Officials in the Biden administration were so concerned about the US military’s lack of a domestic samarium supply that they issued large contracts for the construction of two samarium production facilities. Neither was built because of commercial concerns, leaving the US entirely dependent on China.
Beijing’s new export controls on rare earths specify that licenses can be issued based only on the final user of the mineral at the end of the supply chain. For samarium licenses, that sometimes means military contractors.
Of the 7 kinds of rare earth metals restricted by China, the demand for 6 of them is largely civilian. Samarium is different. It is “almost exclusively used for military purposes.”
DOD regulations require that the casting or smelting of military magnets be done in the US or a friendly nation. But the rules allow the ingredients of military magnets to be imported from anywhere, so low-cost samarium has come from China for many years.
Starting in the 1970s, militaries in the West depended on a single chemical factory in La Rochelle, France, that refined samarium from ore mined in Australia. But that factory closed in 1994, partly because of pollution concerns. The factory also could not compete with inexpensive production in Baotou, Inner Mongolia.
In 2009, Congress ordered DOD to come up with a plan by the following year to address the dependence on China.
That was before China halted shipments to Japan of all 17 kinds of rare earths for two months in late 2010 as part of a territorial dispute. A $1B American effort began soon after to repair, expand and reopen the sole US rare earths mine, in Mountain Pass, CA, which had suspended operations in 1998 after a pipeline leak.
The Mountain Pass mine had not previously tried to pry samarium loose from its ore, and did not start doing so as part of its expansion. The mine reopened in 2014, producing other rare earths, but closed a year later and went bankrupt because it could not compete with Chinese production.
A new company, MP Materials, acquired the Mountain Pass mine and resumed operations there in 2018. But it initially shipped ore to China for processing.
DOD awarded $35M to MP in early 2022 to start production of samarium and several other rare earths that China has now restricted. MP then spent $100M, using a lot of its own money, to buy the necessary equipment to process them.
The Biden administration soon after awarded $351M to Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths to build a facility in Texas that would also produce samarium.
The market for samarium was so small that it would be uneconomical to have two producers in the US. So MP never installed its samarium processing equipment, which is still in storage.
But Lynas never built its Texas factory, after a permit it had for rare earth mining in Malaysia that was in limbo was eventually renewed.
MP is willing to install its samarium processing equipment now only if promised better financial terms by customers.
nytimes.com/2025/06/09/bus
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Byron Wan
@Byron_Wan
Beijing has not committed to grant export clearance for some specialized rare-earth magnets that US military suppliers need for fighter jets and missile systems.
At the London talks, China promised to fast-track approval of rare-earth export applications from non-military US