The viewpoint is that it will take about 10 years to truly "get rid of China", and the United States is rebuilding its rare earth magnet supply network
According to the report of Nihon Keizai Shimbun on July 16, the United States is rebuilding its supply network of rare earth magnets. According to reports, in order to reduce dependence on China in the field of strategic goods, some production processes with a higher share held by China will be transferred to the United States, and American companies supported by the US government are accelerating their investment speed.
According to reports, the world's few rare earth production site, the Mountain Pass Mine, which was put into operation in the 1950s, is only a little over an hour's drive from downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. On approximately 8.9 square kilometers of land, there are numerous mining equipment and processing facilities. This place was once abandoned around 2015, but now it has ushered in a wave of large-scale investment.
Matt Sloucher, senior vice president in charge of government and foreign affairs of the U.S. Mountain Pass Materials Company, which owns the mine, told the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in early May
▲ Information image: Rare earth ore in Mangting Mountain Pass
The company expects to invest a total of $700 million in hardware improvement by 2024, including the "separation and refining" process of purifying metals from mined ore. At present, China's market share in this field is as high as 90%. The Mangting Mountain Pass Mine previously processed ore into intermediate products and exported them to China to complete the follow-up work.
![The viewpoint is that it will take about 10 years to truly "get rid of China", and the United States is rebuilding its rare earth magnet supply network](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/dd2b5d4d1af97a4c2e5ef17721cf4302.jpg)
The report states that the Biden administration has begun to provide support for the aforementioned trend. Mangting Mountain Pass Materials Company received a total of $45 million in assistance from the Pentagon when launching a new project.
The company will also start production of rare earth magnets in Texas within this year and has signed a long-term contract with General Motors, which is accelerating its transition to electric vehicles. In the future, there will be an annual production capacity of 500000 electric vehicle magnets in the United States.
The report points out that some American startups are also trying to break free from their dependence on China. As of May, American company Noveon Magnetics, which manufactures rare earth magnets, has raised $75 million in funding and will use neodymium imported from South Korea for commercial production of magnets at its production base in San Marcos, Texas. The Pentagon has provided it with approximately $35 million in assistance.
The report believes that it is not easy to overturn the supply network that has long relied on China, and the United States, which has high raw material procurement and logistics costs, does not have an advantage. Many opinions believe that it will take about ten years to truly "get rid of China".