Quite a long article and US focused. But provides insight into what's happening across the US side of the fence line regarding rare earth's. Article focuses on Blackboxstocks partnership with a Canadian resource firm, importantly regarding downstream processing of the ore into finished product. Ignoring current Canadian US friction its going to be an important domestic North American source for the US Defence industry. Another noteworthy aspect is the January 1st 2027 deadline for restrictions on acquiring rare earth materials outside of China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. Not that the last two contribute much anyway but it does suggest allied sources such as Australia take on greater importance, and further suggests 2026 might be an important year for Australian companies in this space. Lynas gets a mention in the write up below. Might pay to have a penny worth spending in your holster past the New Year.

Landmark Deal Gives North America Its First Heavy Rare Earth Refinery

By Michael Scott - Dec 09, 2025, 6:00 AM CST

REAlloys, which is in the process of merging with Blackboxstocks Inc. (NASDAQ: BLBX), has moved to the front of the rare earth sector with a new agreement that gives it control over the lion's share of North America's upcoming heavy rare earth production.

Its partnership with the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) brings commercial volumes of dysprosium, terbium, and high-purity NdPr into the region for the first time, directly targeting the largest bottleneck in Western magnet manufacturing.

Reuters described the transaction as a "rare earths tie-up with strategic implications for the North American supply chain" because policymakers have their eyes glued to this space in light of 2027 procurement rules.

As new U.S. sourcing laws tighten, REAlloys now holds the supply position that downstream defense and advanced-manufacturing buyers will depend on, the Globe & Mail heralding the SRC facility as "North America's first vertically integrated rare-earth processing complex-capable of separation and smelting at commercial scale".

This is the segment of the supply chain the United States has been trying to rebuild for nearly two decades.

Heavy rare earths are the performance elements. They dictate whether a magnet can withstand heat, acceleration, and EMI without losing stability. These are all capabilities that extend far beyond defense. They are central to electric-vehicle motors, high-efficiency industrial equipment, medical imaging, renewable-energy generation, satellites, aerospace controls, and precision manufacturing. In short, they sit at the core of technologies that underpin both modern economies and military readiness.

And until now, North America has had no commercial-scale ability to refine them.

A Midstream Capability the Region Has Never Had

SRC's facility in Saskatoon is North America's first rare-earth complex designed to integrate monazite processing, separation, and metal production at a commercial scale. That's a capability the region has lacked for decades.

The new agreement with REAlloys accelerates that evolution by adding a full heavy rare earth line, transforming the site from an advanced separation plant into the continent's only integrated source of dysprosium, terbium, and high-purity NdPr metals.

Under the partnership, REAlloys will invest approximately $21 million to expand SRC's refining capacity, increasing heavy rare earth throughput by roughly 300% and boosting NdPr metal output by about 50%.

When the upgraded system enters production in early 2027, SRC expects to deliver 30 tonnes of dysprosium oxide, 15 tonnes of terbium oxide, and 400-600 tonnes of high-purity NdPr metal annually.

REAlloys has secured 80% of this expanded output under a long-term offtake arrangement, a position that gives the company the dominant share of the first commercial heavy rare earth production run in North America.

According to the announcement, the redesigned system will also include "AI-driven separation and smelting infrastructure," enabling SRC to move directly into metal production rather than stopping at oxide, a step most Western facilities historically have been unable to achieve.

This changes where REAlloys sits in the market. It is no longer a magnet manufacturer with upstream ambitions. Instead, it's the principal customer of the only heavy rare earth refining platform in the region, and one of the few companies globally positioned to supply high-performance magnet metals into compliant supply chains.

The timing is highly strategic.

Beginning January 1, 2027, the U.S. Department of Defense will be barred from sourcing rare earth metals, magnets, and components from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. Federal buyers will shift procurement to domestic or allied suppliers. And for heavy rare earth metals, SRC's upgraded facility-with REAlloys as its primary offtake partner-will be the only operation ready to meet that requirement at commercial scale.

Integrating the Chain From Source to Magnet

This agreement fits into a larger structure REAlloys has been putting in place across the rare-earth chain.

At the upstream level, the company anchors its plans in Hoidas Lake in Saskatchewan, a deposit with roughly 2.15 million tonnes of measured and indicated TREO and one of Canada's most significant rare-earth resources. It gives REAlloys a defined long-term feedstock, supported by additional allied and recycled material sources that broaden the supply base.

The midstream is defined by the Saskatchewan Research Council's separation and metal-making operation, now being expanded with AI-driven separation and smelting systems to create North America's first commercial-scale heavy rare earth production line. Under the new agreement, REAlloys becomes the primary offtake partner for this upgraded capacity, securing 80% of the heavy rare earth output and effectively linking its upstream resource base to a domestic refining platform capable of producing dysprosium, terbium, and high-purity NdPr metals at meaningful scale.

Downstream, the Euclid Magnet Facility in Ohio forms the final step in the chain. Established in 2013 to serve U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Energy customers, the facility produces advanced alloys and magnet materials, holds SBIR status that permits sole-source federal procurement, and has earned multiple R&D 100 awards and associated materials-science distinctions. Together, these assets give REAlloys something Western operators have struggled to assemble: a vertically aligned system that spans ore, metals, alloys, and magnets inside a single continental corridor.

Adding to this structure is a clear signal from Washington.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank issued a $200 million Letter of Interest in support of REAlloys' integrated mine-to-magnet strategy, underscoring federal recognition of the need for a domestic magnet industry as procurement rules tighten.

Piece by piece, the company has begun to build the architecture of a supply chain that has been missing from North America for decades and is now central to reindustrialization efforts on both sides of the border.

A Shift in Market Dynamics

Demand for high-performance magnets continues to accelerate across defense, electric mobility, automation, satellites, and clean energy. Still, the bottleneck has always been the same. Even when Western miners produced rare earth concentrate, they still depended on China for metal-making and heavy rare earth preparation.

That pressure point is now tightening under new procurement rules. Beginning January 1, 2027, the U.S. Department of Defense will be barred from sourcing rare earth metals, magnets, and components from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

This shift forces federal buyers to transition toward domestic or allied supply. Most manufacturers are not ready for that deadline.

REAlloys, through its partnership with SRC, is now one of the only groups positioned to supply dysprosium, terbium, and NdPr metals at the volumes required by the U.S. and Canadian industrial base.

Heavy rare earths remain the least substitutable inputs in magnet production. They determine stability under heat, acceleration, magnetic load, and environmental stress-all the things that define missile guidance accuracy, aircraft efficiency, EV motor durability, satellite maneuvering, and industrial automation reliability. For nearly 15 years, every Western supply chain assessment has identified heavy rare earths as the system's most acute vulnerability.

With this agreement, that vulnerability lessens. REAlloys and SRC are establishing the first commercially scaled heavy rare earth production line in North America, and for the first time, a significant portion of that output is contracted directly to a domestic magnet producer.

Execution Will Define the Next Step

North America's rare earth problem has never been about geology. It has always been the absence of a functioning midstream, the refining and metal-making steps that turn mined material into usable inputs. This gap has forced the United States and Canada to depend on offshore supply even when domestic or allied resources were available.

Heavy rare earths have been the hardest of all to source, leaving defense, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing exposed to single-country dependence for the materials that determine thermal stability, precision, and performance.

SRC's expansion arrives as North America finally confronts the part of the rare earth chain it never built: the part rare earths are converted into usable critical materials. Beginning in 2027, U.S. defense buyers must shift away from Chinese supply, but the region has had no commercial-scale source of dysprosium, terbium, or NdPr metals, prompting Reuters to note that the SRC upgrade is the first step toward filling that gap.

The REAlloys agreement doesn't close the loop, but it does create the first steady flow of heavy rare earth metals inside the U.S.-Canada system. For defense, auto manufacturing, and advanced industrial applications, it marks a shift from theoretical supply to material that can be contracted, scheduled, and built into production plans.

What happens next depends on execution. If SRC delivers its upgraded capacity on schedule and if downstream buyers adapt to the new procurement landscape, 2027 could mark the first time North America has had a functional heavy rare earth channel of its own. It would not eliminate vulnerability, but it would begin to narrow the exposure that has shaped every rare earth strategy discussion since the early 2000s.

Other companies to watch in the resources sector:

Vale S.A. (NYSE: VALE)

Vale S.A. continues to aggressively decouple its base metals operations from its traditional iron ore business to capture higher valuations in the green energy market. The Brazilian mining giant has formally structured Vale Base Metals as a distinct entity tasked with managing its vast nickel and copper assets in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia. This strategic separation allows the unit to operate with the agility of a growth-focused company while leveraging the massive capital resources of its parent.

Vale is currently executing a $25 billion to $30 billion capital investment program aimed at increasing its copper production to 900,000 metric tons per year and its nickel output to 300,000 metric tons per year by 2030. The company's operations in Sudbury, Ontario, and Voisey's Bay in Labrador remain the linchpins of this strategy, providing low-carbon nickel rounds and pellets that Western automakers prioritize for their compliance with inflation-reduction incentives and ESG mandates.

Beyond simple extraction, Vale has deepened its downstream integration to secure its role as a direct supplier to the battery supply chain. The company is advancing joint ventures in Indonesia to process laterite nickel ore using high-pressure acid leaching technology, a method essential for producing the mixed hydroxide precipitate required for battery cathodes. Simultaneously, Vale has solidified long-term supply agreements with major automotive partners, including General Motors and Tesla, ensuring that a significant percentage of its high-grade Class 1 nickel is allocated directly to North American and European electric vehicle production.

Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU)

Energy Fuels Inc. has successfully transitioned from a pure-play uranium miner into a diversified critical minerals processor, leveraging its White Mesa Mill in Utah to bridge a critical gap in the U.S. supply chain. As of late 2025, the company is processing commercial volumes of monazite sands-a radioactive byproduct of heavy mineral sand operations-to recover both uranium and rare earth elements.

The White Mesa Mill is the only facility in the United States with the existing licenses and tailings capacity to handle the radionuclides associated with monazite, giving Energy Fuels a distinct regulatory advantage. The company has moved beyond producing a mixed rare earth carbonate and is now operating Phase 1 separation circuits to produce commercial quantities of separated neodymium and praseodymium oxides. This operational shift effectively bypasses the historical necessity of shipping American feedstocks to China for separation, creating a nascent but vital domestic pathway for magnet materials.

To secure sufficient feedstock for this expansion, Energy Fuels has aggressively acquired heavy mineral sand projects in the Southern Hemisphere, including the acquisition of Base Resources and its Toliara Project in Madagascar, as well as the Bahia Project in Brazil. These acquisitions provide the company with a vertically integrated supply of monazite, insulating it from spot market volatility. The company is utilizing its "crack and leach" capacity to extract the rare earths while simultaneously recovering uranium for the nuclear fuel market, creating a dual-revenue model that lowers the effective cost of production for both commodities.

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP)

MP Materials Corp. has completed its multi-year strategy to restore the full rare earth magnet supply chain to the United States. While the company continues to maximize output at its Mountain Pass mine in California, its strategic focus has shifted heavily toward midstream and downstream manufacturing.

In 2025, MP Materials ramped up commercial production at its magnet manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. This facility is now actively producing finished neodymium-iron-boron magnets, sourcing the metal alloy directly from the company's own separated oxides. This vertical integration allows MP Materials to control every step of the process, from the open pit in California to the finished component in Texas, effectively insulating its customers from the geopolitical risks associated with the Chinese supply chain. The Fort Worth plant is designed to produce approximately 1,000 tonnes of finished magnets annually in its initial phase, with plans to scale significantly to meet demand from General Motors and other automotive partners.

MP Materials has secured substantial backing from the Department of Defense to refine heavy rare earths as well, acknowledging that a complete magnet supply chain requires dysprosium and terbium. The company is currently fulfilling a contract to supply rare earth materials to the Pentagon, underscoring the dual-use nature of its products. By successfully closing the loop between mining and manufacturing, MP Materials has established itself not just as a mining firm, but as the foundational industrial anchor for the American electrification and defense sectors.

Critical Metals Corp. (NASDAQ: CRML)

Critical Metals Corp. is advancing its "trans-Atlantic" strategy to supply strategic materials to Western markets through its flagship assets in Austria and Greenland. The company's Wolfsberg Lithium Project in Carinthia, Austria, has moved through the definitive feasibility stage and is positioning itself as the first fully permitted lithium mine in Europe.

Located roughly 170 miles from major battery manufacturing hubs, Wolfsberg offers a logistical advantage that reduces transportation emissions and aligns with the European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act. The project is designed as an underground mine to minimize surface disruption, a key factor in securing local community support and regulatory approval in an environmentally sensitive region. Critical Metals has signed binding offtake agreements with top-tier partners like BMW, ensuring that the lithium hydroxide produced at Wolfsberg has a guaranteed route to market as soon as commercial production begins.

In parallel, the company is developing the Tanbreez Rare Earth Project in Greenland, which hosts one of the largest known deposits of heavy rare earth elements and zirconium in the world. The Tanbreez asset differs from many competitors because its mineralization is hosted in kakortokite rather than carbonatite, which allows for different processing metrics and a potentially lower acid consumption profile.

USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR)

USA Rare Earth, Inc. is executing a strategy centered on the revitalization of the American magnet manufacturing sector, anchored by its new facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Unlike peers that focus primarily on extraction, USA Rare Earth prioritizes the downstream production of sintered neo magnets, the highest-performance category of permanent magnets used in electric vehicle traction motors and defense systems.

The Stillwater plant has commenced initial qualification runs, utilizing equipment and intellectual property acquired from former Hitachi Metals facilities in North Carolina. This approach has allowed the company to leapfrog the typical research and development timeline, deploying proven commercial-scale technology to meet immediate demand. The company aims to scale production to meet a substantial portion of the U.S. defense industry's annual requirement, reducing the Pentagon's exposure to foreign supply shocks.

To support this manufacturing capacity, USA Rare Earth is developing the Round Top Heavy Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Project in West Texas. Round Top is a unique geological deposit containing a wide suite of magnetic rare earths alongside lithium, beryllium and gallium. The company is piloting a continuous ion exchange processing method to efficiently separate these materials from the rhyolite host rock. While the mine development continues, the company has secured intermediate feedstock supplies to ensure the Oklahoma plant can operate independently of the mine's timeline.

Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. (OTC: LYSDY)

Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. remains the most significant producer of separated rare earth materials outside the People's Republic of China, providing the global market with a proven non-Chinese supply of NdPr oxide. The Australian firm has substantially reconfigured its industrial footprint to mitigate regulatory risks and expand capacity.

The company's new cracking and leaching facility in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, is now fully operational. This plant processes the lanthanide concentrate from the Mt Weld mine locally, removing radioactive waste material before shipping a mixed rare earth carbonate to Malaysia for final separation. This operational change was necessitated by tightened environmental regulations in Malaysia but has ultimately strengthened the company's supply chain by retaining the most hazardous waste handling within the mining jurisdiction of Australia.

Simultaneously, Lynas is constructing a heavy rare earth separation facility in Seadrift, Texas, a project partially funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. This facility is designed to process heavy rare earth feedstock to produce separated dysprosium and terbium, materials that are currently sourced almost exclusively from China.

General Motors Company (NYSE: GM)

General Motors Company has fundamentally altered its procurement strategy to become an active participant in the mining sector, recognizing that raw material availability is the primary bottleneck for its "Ultium" electric vehicle platform. The automaker is investing directly in resource development to secure the lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese required for its battery cells. GM's $650 million equity investment in Lithium Americas Corp. has facilitated the development of the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada, the largest known lithium source in the United States. This deal grants GM exclusive access to the Phase 1 production from Thacker Pass, ensuring a domestic supply of lithium carbonate that enables its vehicles to qualify for full consumer tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Beyond lithium, GM has forged a web of direct supply agreements for other battery metals, bypassing traditional intermediaries. The company has multi-year contracts with Glencore for cobalt and with Vale for low-carbon nickel sulfate from Canada. GM is also constructing a localized cathode active material supply chain through a joint venture with POSCO Chemical in Quebec, which will process materials sourced from GM's mining partners. The automaker is heavily investing in a closed-loop battery recycling ecosystem through its collaboration with Li-Cycle, aiming to recover up to 95 percent of the critical minerals from end-of-life batteries and manufacturing scrap.

Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE: SCCO)

Southern Copper Corporation is leveraging its position as the holder of the world's largest copper reserves to meet the structural supply deficit projected for the late 2020s. The company operates open-pit mines in Peru and Mexico that are among the lowest-cost producers in the industry, allowing it to generate robust cash flows even during periods of price volatility.

A major development for the company is the advancement of the Tía María project in the Arequipa region of Peru. After more than a decade of social and political delays, the company has commenced construction on the $1.4 billion greenfield mine. Tía María is expected to produce 120,000 tons of copper cathodes annually using solvent extraction and electrowinning technology, which eliminates the need for a smelter and reduces the environmental footprint. The successful activation of this project signals a significant improvement in the company's ability to navigate complex community relations in Peru.

In Mexico, Southern Copper is investing heavily to expand its Buenavista Zinc and Pilares projects, aiming to increase its total production capacity to over 1.2 million tons of copper per year. The company is also advancing the massive Michiquillay project in Cajamarca, Peru, a world-class deposit that is currently in the exploration and social baseline study phase. Southern Copper's strategy focuses on organic growth through the development of its own extensive concession portfolio rather than through expensive acquisitions.

Piedmont Lithium Inc. (NASDAQ: PLL)

Piedmont Lithium Inc. is establishing itself as a multi-jurisdictional supplier of lithium hydroxide, balancing near-term revenue generation with long-term domestic development. The company's Carolina Lithium project in Gaston County, North Carolina, has received its state mining permit, a crucial regulatory victory that clears the path for construction. This fully integrated project is designed to mine spodumene ore and convert it into battery-grade lithium hydroxide on the same site, minimizing logistics costs and carbon emissions.

However, recognizing the time required to build such a facility, Piedmont has executed a strategy to secure lithium units earlier through international partnerships. The company holds a supply agreement and equity interest in Sayona Mining's Quebec operations, where production is already underway at the North American Lithium complex. This partnership allows Piedmont to sell commercial shipments of spodumene concentrate to the global market while its U.S. assets are developed.

Piedmont is also advancing the Ewoyaa Lithium Project in Ghana in partnership with Atlantic Lithium. The company is funding the development of this asset in exchange for a 50 percent interest in the project's production. The Ewoyaa material is intended to serve as a primary feedstock for Piedmont's proposed conversion facility in Tennessee, known as Tennessee Lithium. This merchant plant aims to process foreign concentrate into domestic lithium hydroxide, further expanding the U.S. refining base.

Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. (NYSE: NMG)

Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. is nearing the completion of its "ore-to-anode" business model, aimed at providing a carbon-neutral alternative to Chinese synthetic and natural graphite. The company is constructing the Matawinie Mine in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Quebec, which is notable for being the world's first open-pit mine designed to operate with an all-electric fleet of mining equipment. This electrification strategy allows the company to produce graphite concentrate with a significantly lower carbon footprint than competitors. The extracted material will be transported to the company's advanced manufacturing plant in Bécancour, Quebec, a dedicated battery materials industrial park. Here, the concentrate will be shaped and purified to produce the coated spherical graphite required for lithium-ion battery anodes.

The company has solidified its commercial viability through multi-year offtake agreements with anchor customers General Motors and Panasonic Energy. These contracts cover the vast majority of the company's projected Phase 1 production, providing the revenue certainty needed to secure project financing. Nouveau Monde has also attracted strategic capital investments from Mitsui & Co. and Pallinghurst Resources, partners that bring both financial strength and logistical expertise.

Perpetua Resources Corp. (NASDAQ: PPTA)

Perpetua Resources Corp. has achieved a historic regulatory milestone for its Stibnite Gold Project in central Idaho, securing a Final Record of Decision from the U.S. Forest Service. This approval authorizes the company to proceed with the restoration and redevelopment of the brownfield site, which was abandoned by previous operators decades ago. The project is unique in that it contains one of the largest economic reserves of antimony not controlled by China.

Antimony is a federally designated critical mineral essential for the production of munitions, specifically as a hardening agent for lead in bullets and in the primers of small-caliber ammunition. It is also increasingly vital for large-scale liquid metal batteries used in grid energy storage.

Recognizing the national security implications of the project, the U.S. Department of Defense has awarded Perpetua Resources nearly $75 million in funding through the Defense Production Act and other initiatives to accelerate the project's development. This government backing effectively de-risks the permitting and construction timeline, validating the project's strategic necessity.

Perpetua's plan involves reprocessing historical tailings to recover gold and antimony while simultaneously repairing the environmental damage left by World War II-era mining, including the restoration of fish passage for native salmon populations.

A well written article by friend of Strawman, Alan Kohler outlining some interesting analogies to past historical events and actions between US and the "iron curtain" countries. Love the Sputnik comparison!!

Trump's rare earths deal to counter China was a badly needed 'Sputnik moment'

By Alan Kohler

China is both communist and working passably well, something Trump and the US are being forced to confront. (Reuters: Brandon Bell/Pool)

The other day US President Donald Trump said: "With a communist in charge? Look, you just go back a thousand years, it's been done many times, a thousand years, it's never worked once."

He was talking about Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate for New York City's mayoral election on November 4, who says he is a democratic socialist, not a communist. Close enough.

As for the thousand years, he must be talking about King Cnut the Dane who was ruling England in 1025, and who does seem to have been a bit of a Kim Jong-il-style communist, having inherited the Danish crown from his father before invading England, and commanded the tides not to rise and all that, although 1,000 years ago Karl Marx was 823 years away from inventing communism.

Anyway, Trump had forgotten that the previous day he had signed a critical minerals deal with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to try to counter China's dominance of their global supply.

Beijing's export-licence requirements on seven rare earths galvanised the Trump administration into action. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

China's capitalism 101 controls rare earths

To remind the president: China is both communist and working passably well, something he and the United States generally are being forced reluctantly to confront.

In fact, China is doing better than just working. Historian Adam Tooze pronounced on a podcast about the same time as Trump and Albanese were signing their deal that: "China isn't just an analytical problem; it is the master key to understanding modernity. [It] is the biggest laboratory of organised modernisation there has ever been or ever will be …"

But then, is China actually communist?

Well, it's ruled by the Communist Party and has been for 76 years, still with an official ideology of Marxism-Leninism "with Chinese characteristics", which seems to mean that it's a capitalist sort of communist country.

Indeed, China used capitalism 101 to get control of rare earths and critical minerals: that is the time-honoured tactic of loss leading, in which a business sells a product below cost to drive its competitors out of business and grab a monopoly.

The world's principal rare-earths mine, Mountain Pass in California, was driven out of business by China in 2002, and while it reopened in 2015 with a price guarantee from the Obama administration, it was too late — its 70 per cent global market share had become China's 70 per cent, which it still is.

In 2002, the US was busy invading Afghanistan and getting ready to invade Iraq and if America's leaders at the time thought about China at all, they thought that it would never amount to much … because, you know, they are communist losers.

At that point America was still basking in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, which argued that the end of the Cold War marked the end of mankind's ideological evolution and the final victory of Western liberal democracy as the enduring form of human government.

Communism doesn't work was the general view, to which Trump apparently still cleaves.

Also, in 2002 China had just joined the World Trade Organization and embarked on the modernisation that Tooze describes as the biggest there has ever been or ever will be.

And now China is wiping the floor with America in just about every aspect of economic and industrial life.

A monument reads: "Home of rare earths welcomes you", in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.  (Reuters: David Gray)

Trump missing a 'Sputnik moment' 

The 2002 closure of the Mountain Pass mine should have been a "Sputnik moment" for the United States, echoing the Soviet Union's launch on October 4, 1957, of the first satellite, Sputnik 1, which produced a huge, panicked national effort to invest in science and scientific education, leading to the creation of NASA, landing Apollo 11 on the Moon in 1969 and, eventually, to the invention of the internet and artificial intelligence (AI).

There was a bit of a Sputnik moment on February 4 this year when China's Ministry of Commerce announced new controls on exports of tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium.

China supplies 80 per cent of the world's tungsten and bismuth, 67 per cent of tellurium and indium and 42 per cent of molybdenum.

The move to break China's iron grip on world's supply of critical minerals

China has created a vice-like grip on the mining, refining and production of global metals. 

By the way, this was seven years after China's own Sputnik moment, when the US banned semiconductor exports to China and set China on a new and very focused economic course.

The logic for Beijing was simple: if the US could ban shipments of semiconductors, it might also ban chemical products, auto parts, or any number of key inputs. Becoming self-sufficient in everything became a matter of national security.

Chinese banks were told to stop lending to real estate and instead to lend hand over fist to anyone adding industrial capacity (note that the government didn't build the capacity itself, as a truly communist nation would — it was socialism with Chinese characteristics).

On March 20, Trump issued an executive order with "Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production", which was a long way short of what Dwight D Eisenhower did in 1957 in response to Sputnik 1.

On April 4, Beijing doubled down, adding export-licence requirements on seven rare earths — samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium — and made it clear these minerals would not be available for military applications.

That galvanised the Trump administration into action and negotiations for a deal to get hold of Australian rare earths were urgently commenced.

But there should have been some more Sputnik moments for the US this year, starting with the Chinese AI company, DeepSeek, unveiling its models on January 22 this year, at a fraction of the cost of American ones.

Everyone thought China was running a distant second in the AI race, but that turned out to be wrong.

Chinese robots at the shops

Then more recently, Chinese mega tech company Alibaba announced it had developed a pooling system called Aegaeon that reduced by 82 per cent the number of Nvidia GPUs (graphics processing units) needed to do AI.

And in the past few days here in Australia, there has been a small burst of publicity about robots in shopping centres prompted by a company called Bellbots, including an appearance on Kyle and Jackie O, and a story on Channel 9 news filmed with a robot at the new Silverdale mall in Penrith.

I rang up Andrew Bell, 36, founder, owner and CEO of Bellbots. At 17 he joined the army and a year later was sent to Iraq where, he says, he was exposed to a lot of tech (as well as bullets presumably).

His business idea is to put robots into shopping centres where he would rent a space to park and charge their batteries, and then have the machines wander around the centre (they are 1.5 metres tall, walk on two legs, talk, look a bit human, with a head but not a face, and are remarkably stable).

There will be two revenue streams as Bell sees it: advertising, with the robot voicing ads paid for by retailers to spruik their stores, and shoppers could also use an app to rent the robot to carry their shopping to the car (or discuss the meaning of life over a coffee?).

A video of the humanoid robots fighting in the China Media Group World Robot Competition in May. (Reuters: CCTV)

At least that's the plan. And where is he getting the robots from? China, and a company called Unitree.

Unitree launched its new generation of humanoid robots last week, called H2, with a video of it dancing to loud heavy metal music. Rudolph Nureyev it is not, but that the thing dances at all is progress.

Bell has bought one of Unitree's G1 machines, not the all-dancing H2 model, and has another nine on standby if he can get a deal with a shopping centre. He wouldn't tell me what he paid for it, but I'd guess it's about $20,000.

My son's reaction was: "Oh, these things are going to end up in the river!", which is probably true after what happened to e-bikes, so there's an insurance dimension to be worked out.

Bell says he would have liked to use Tesla's Optimus robot, which he loves the look of, but when he contacted them, they weren't interested and blew him off.

Unitree in China, on the other hand, was all over him: "They were open to anything we wanted to suggest, really on the ball."

If Chinese robots wandering around a shopping centre in Penrith spouting ads and carrying shopping to the car park isn't a Sputnik moment, and proof that communism works, I don't know what is.

Alan Kohler is finance presenter and columnist on ABC News and he also writes for Intelligent Investor.

Previously, in this post, there's been a few comments and views on the Government setting potential price floors for Rare Earth, more specifically, battery materials.

I found this article in the AFR quoting $PLS Chief Executive Dale Henderson as a view I subscribe to. Quite like how Dale operates PLS, including the strategic way he tippy toed around this issue so as not to alienate anyone that might send Government funds towards $PLS in the future!!

Happy reading:

Edit- Sorry, I should have stated in the original post, held IRL. Unfortunately held in SM until last week, which is obviously why the jump in SP

Lithium price floor could trigger ‘bad, unintended consequences’

Peter KerResources reporter

Oct 24, 2025 – 4.17pm

Lithium exporter PLS says bad and unintended consequences could result from a government plan to set minimum price floors for the battery mineral, and taxpayer funds may be better spent on shared infrastructure that lowers production costs across the sector.

A taxpayer-backed “price floor” for critical minerals has been touted by federal Resources Minister Madeleine King as part of work to develop a $1.2 billion “strategic reserve” of the metals needed for defence and decarbonisation applications.

PLS chief executive Dale Henderson said he was not necessarily opposed to a price floor, but the merits of the idea would depend heavily on its design.

PLS chief Dale Henderson says taxpayer money is better used building shared infrastructure. Ross Swanborough

“The devil is in the detail. If deployed the right way there could be positives, but equally there could be bad, unintended consequences,” he said.

“The concern people have in this regard is that the wrong projects get supported and it effectively becomes a waste of taxpayer funding and sets up an artificial circumstance. That is the situation we all want to avoid.

“However, if there is a construct that can successfully navigate that and ensure the right support flows to the strongest projects, maybe there is something there.”

The comments come after The Australian Financial Review revealed this week that some lithium miners were opposed to a price floor because they feared it could distort markets and keep weaker, less viable producers in the market for longer.

The concerns from established lithium miners raise doubts over whether the battery metal will be included in the first phase of the strategic reserve policy.

The reserve is expected to initially focus on providing price floors for Australian rare earths aspirants – a sector typified by companies trying to fund and build future projects, rather than incumbent producers with established supply contracts.

Henderson said the best way for governments to support the critical minerals sector was to build shared infrastructure, such as a clean energy network for the multiple miners working near PLS in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

“It makes an abundance of sense to network together those mines and lever the full scale, so large-scale energy hubs coupled with large-scale network solutions,” he said.

Henderson also praised the $546.6 million of federal and state money that was being spent on construction of new, multi-user port berths at Lumsden Point near Port Hedland for lithium miners and clean energy developers.

“The common thread with each of these is, it lowers the cost for all. This investment pays back over decades and decades through multiple cycles,” he said.

Buying shares

“If you contrast that to deploying those same taxpayer funds to say, price support on the revenue side, that is not necessarily sustainable as compared to investing in long-term sustainable cost reductions.”

Taxpayer support for miners and explorers was traditionally provided by states in the form of drilling grants to stimulate new mineral discoveries or royalty holidays when commodity prices and revenues were weak.

In the past four years the federal government ramped up its support by making concessional loans to miners through agencies such as Export Finance Australia or the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund.

More recently, Australian and US governments have embraced further risk by using taxpayer funds to buy shares in listed critical mineral companies, including Liontown Resources, Arafura Resources, Trilogy Metals and MP Materials.

Asked whether listed equities were a good way to deliver taxpayer support, Henderson said he didn’t have a firm view.

“The role of government, on the behalf of the people, is to support a competitive landscape for businesses, and one in which there is fair opportunity for businesses to strive,” he said.

“If there is selective ownership interest on the part of the government and particular projects, would that change that fair playground? Would it remain fair and unbiased? I am not sure, it’s an open question.”

PLS shares rose 7 per cent on Friday to briefly test their highest levels since June 2024.

The rally was driven by confirmation that a recovery in prices for lithium-rich spodumene concentrate had driven stronger revenue for PLS in the September quarter.

Spodumene concentrate was fetching $US865 ($1330) a tonne on October 23, according to S&P Global Platts; up from $US575 a tonne in June. But the commodity remains well below the $US8000 a tonne it was briefly fetching in early 2023.

PLS produces lithium at its Pilgan mine in the Pilbara, and Henderson said prices would need to be above $1200 a tonne for an extended period before PLS resumed production at the neighbouring Ngungaju hub, which is currently mothballed.

PLS’ cash balance was $852 million at September 30; down by $122 million in the past three months. The company’s cash balance has now declined in each of the past nine quarters since it stood at $3.33 billion at June 30, 2023.

The decline has been driven by spending on expansion projects that will allow the company to sell higher volumes, as well as tax payments, dividends and also lower income amid weak lithium prices.

21-Oct-2025:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/10/united-states-australia-framework-for-securing-of-supply-in-the-mining-and-processing-of-critical-minerals-and-rare-earths/

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/10/united-states-australia-framework-for-securing-of-supply-in-the-mining-and-processing-of-critical-minerals-and-rare-earths/

See also AFR story:

‘We’ll have so much’: Trump taunts China with Albanese rare earths deal

by Jessica Gardner, AFR United States correspondent, Updated Oct 21, 2025 – 6.57am, first published at 5.32am.

Washington | Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump have agreed to invest a combined $US3 billion ($4.6 billion) in critical minerals projects and work together to loosen China’s grip on the crucial industry.

A framework for co-operating on critical minerals signed at the two leaders’ long-awaited White House meeting on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) includes offering guaranteed price floors for new producers and blocking asset sales on security grounds, in moves that are likely to anger Beijing.

“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical minerals and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them. They’ll be worth about two dollars,” Trump, sitting next to a beaming Albanese, told reporters in the White House cabinet room.

The two countries will pump $US1 billion each into Australian and US projects over the next six months, including a $US200 million equity investment in a West Australian gallium plant owned by Alcoa and a $US100 million stake in the Gina Rinehart-backed Arafura Nolans rare earths mine.

The US will invest a further $US1 billion down the track. “This is an $US8.5 billion pipeline that we have ready to go,” Albanese said, referring to the equivalent of $13 billion in capital expenditure required for the projects in line for potential investment. “We’re just getting started.”

Fresh curbs on rare earth exports by China meant the meeting went ahead amid heightened tensions over the supply of the minerals used by manufacturers of everything from smartphones and jet engines to military hardware, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

Trump, however, said the US and Australia had been negotiating an agreement for the past four or five months that calls on both sides to intensify their efforts to secure minerals crucial to future security and prosperity.

Albanese said the deal showed that both sides were “seizing those opportunities which are before us to take our relationship to that next level”.

Read more: Albanese-Trump meeting

• Albanese touches down for critical Trump meeting
• Australia braces for China backlash from PM-Trump meeting
• ‘Play to Trump’s ego’: AFR readers wary over White House talks
• PM to meet White House mining gurus to help solve crisis
• Defence could be key to critical minerals deal with Trump

Awkward Rudd moment

The prime minister sailed through a joint 35-minute joint press conference, but there was one awkward interaction when Trump was asked about social media posts made by Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister and Australia’s serving ambassador to the US.

The US president, who had been asked in press interviews about the tweets before, said he did not know anything about the 2020 posts – where Rudd described Trump, after his first term, as the “most destructive” president in US history and a “traitor to the West”. He also said he did not know the Australian ambassador, who happened to be sitting across the cabinet table from him.

The White House meeting was briefly soured by an awkward moment when Donald Trump was asked about disparaging tweets Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, had made about him in the past.

When Albanese gestured towards Rudd, a close confidante of his, Trump asked him if it was true, before saying to Rudd: “I don’t like you either – and I probably never will.”

In a positive sign for Australia, however, Trump gave the AUKUS submarine sales and technology-sharing pact clear backing, despite an ongoing review by the Pentagon. “There shouldn’t be any more clarifications because we’re just going full steam ahead on building them,” he said.

Under the AUKUS agreement, which was signed by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, the US is set to sell Australia second-hand Virginia-class vessels from 2032. There has been concern that slow production rates mean those sales would undermine the US Navy’s fleet, leaving the country exposed in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere.

“It was going too slowly,” Trump said. “We do actually have a lot of submarines, we have the best submarines anywhere in the world.

“With Anthony [Albanese] we’ve worked on this long and hard. I think it’s really moving along very rapidly, very well.”

Abe Denmark, a partner at The Asia Group and former Biden defence official, said the meeting “injected new momentum into the broader AUKUS partnership and delivered a landmark deal around crucial mineral access and joint investment that will further strengthen the bilateral relationship.”

“He’s done a fantastic job”

Albanese was among the last of America’s allies to sit down with Trump in his second presidency, prompting some observers to worry that the US president’s disruptive tariff policies and demands for Australia and other allies to spend more on defence had frayed the bilateral relationship.

The meeting was positive, however, and Trump expressed hopes he would be able to take up an invitation from Albanese to visit Australia. He noted that the Labor prime minister did very well at the May 2025 election and praised Australia for buying lots of US aircraft.

“I hear you’re very popular today,” Trump said. “It varies from day to day, as with all of us, but he’s done a fantastic job as the prime minister.”

Albanese, who was set to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later on Monday, emphasised the strong economic relationship between the two countries, stressing that Australia had a $50 billion trade deficit with the US.

Although Trump rails against countries that sell more to the US than they buy, preferring trade partners like Australia, there were no signs of a better deal on tariffs. The US imposes a flat 10 per cent tariff on imports from Australia, which Trump said was “very light”. Australian steel and aluminium exporters, however, are subject to near-universal 50 per cent levies.

Critical minerals framework explained

Albanese said there were three groups of projects that would benefit from the critical minerals framework.

Firstly, there was the immediate $US1 billion each would be invested in “joint activities” between the US and Australia with the Alcoa gallium operation and the Arafura Nolans rare earths mining project in the Northern Territory ready to go.

Second, the US would put some money into Australian processing projects, including one that would take in Japanese investment too.

Finally, Australia would make further investment in domestic products.

The signed document details that Australia and the US would support supplies of critical minerals and rare earths “through use of economic policy tools and coordinated investment to accelerate development of diversified, liquid, fair markets”.

As part of this intention, both sides will take steps to speed up project approvals, something that may draw opposition from environmental groups.

They will also work to strengthen the ability to “review and deter critical minerals and rare earth asset sales on national security grounds”, which may trouble Australian producers with Chinese investors.

Australian officials are bracing for a backlash from Beijing to the boosted co-operation between the US and Australia. China controls up to 90 per cent of the processing of some critical minerals, allowing it to distort markets in a way that undermines the establishment of new supply chains.

--- ends ---

Source: https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/albanese-and-trump-commit-to-8-5b-critical-minerals-pipeline-20251020-p5n3se

I expect this will further fuel the rocket that is already under REE/REO (rare earth) companies, and others considered to be "critical minerals" that are in short supply outside of China.