In the ongoing US-China trade war, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been using its monopoly on rare earth minerals to control the West, leading to a crisis for American car manufacturers facing production shutdowns. However, American experts point out that the CCP’s threat of rare earths against the US may backfire, putting themselves in a dangerous position. Once the US finds alternative solutions, the CCP will have no cards left to play. Currently, the US is pursuing dual strategies: scientists are researching rare earth-free motors, while the government is also establishing its own rare earth supply chain.
Rare earth minerals have become a focal point in the US-China trade war. On June 12th, the CCP’s Ministry of Commerce announced that they had approved the export permits for “a certain quantity” of rare earth elements and related products. This decision temporarily eased the anxieties of American car manufacturers and temporarily placated President Trump’s anger.
In April of this year, the CCP’s Ministry of Commerce imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements in retaliation against President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. On May 11th, US and Chinese officials met in Switzerland and reached a 90-day ceasefire agreement on tariffs, which included removing US companies from China’s trade blacklist, allowing them to regain access to rare earth supplies.
However, following this, the CCP has not resumed supply, leading to American car manufacturers starting to shut down due to a shortage of rare earths, prompting Trump to angrily accuse China of “completely violating the agreement we reached.”
After two days of negotiations in London on June 11th, US and Chinese officials finalized a new trade framework. President Trump stated that the agreement includes Beijing’s pledge to resume exports of rare earth elements and magnets to the US.
With this, American industries relying on rare earth magnets for components like in cars, robots, wind turbines, and other high-tech manufacturing sectors have found temporary relief, yet the threat of a “supply halt” looms over them like a sword of Damocles.
Harris Vincent, distinguished professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University, told media that if the CCP excessively pressures the US and Europe with its rare earth monopoly, they risk putting themselves in a very dangerous position.
“It’s like a game of poker. China uses its rare earth monopoly as a geopolitical tool – some say it’s a geopolitical weapon – to exert influence and get what it wants. They’ve been very successful in distributing and marketing rare earths in the past 10 or 20 years through withholding or enforcing rare earth quotas. But they must be very careful when doing so, because if they push the EU or the US too hard, those countries will find alternatives to rare earth magnets, and then China will lose that tool, that ability.”
Harris often serves as an expert for the US Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s three services, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering (NAS/NAE), NASA, and other government agencies on critical issues such as key materials, nanotechnology, quantum science and engineering, radio frequency technology, and how to effectively translate federal research investments into the private sector.
Harris mentioned that the CCP’s use of rare earth threats against other countries had occurred previously between China and Japan.
In September 2010, Chinese fishing boats collided with Japanese Coast Guard ships near the Diaoyu Islands, leading to Japan detaining the captain of a Chinese fishing boat. As a result, China pressured Japan by temporarily halting rare earth exports.
Reflecting on this event, Harris said: “At that time, Japan’s industry was manufacturing electric cars. You may remember the Prius. The Japanese were forced to negotiate. The Chinese Communist Party won that situation. It humiliated the Japanese. They were very frustrated. As a result, the Japanese vowed that they would not let this happen again.”
In 2011 and 2012, the Japanese took very tough actions, attempting to hoard rare earth magnets. To prevent the Beijing government from using rare earth threats against Japan again, Japan achieved some success in this regard.
Harris added: “So I believe the automotive industries in the EU and the US have paid attention to the lessons of Japan in 2010 and 2011. So when China uses the same strategy – using rare earth monopoly as a tool and weapon, as a trade weapon in geopolitics against the US automotive industry – they are very dangerously exposing themselves to push the EU and US automotive industries to seek alternative sources or solutions to solve the rare earth problem (this situation).”
“If they (US automotive industry) take action and succeed, then the Chinese will have no cards left to play, so Beijing must be very careful not to overstep their bounds.”
In the 21st-century US-China trade war, Beijing’s ability to tightly grip the rare earth monopoly stems from a remark by former CCP leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. In January 1992, Deng said in a speech during his Southern Tour, “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.”
Harris commented: “At that time, people may not have paid attention. But now in 2025, almost 45 years later, when we look back, we say, oh my goodness, he was telling us what would happen.”
Starting in the 1980s, China began investing in the rare earth industry, combining rare earth elements from the periodic table to manufacture the strongest magnets, obtaining intellectual property rights through international patents, and establishing a monopoly over processing rare earth materials into engineering products, with one of the most significant products being strong magnets.
Harris explained that China’s monopoly in the rare earth industry and accumulation of related knowledge, technology, and intellectual property was only half of the reason; the other half was China’s willingness to extract rare earths at all costs, especially at the expense of the environment.
“When you extract them (rare earths) from underground and then process them into very pure elements, making them useful for engineering products, it’s a very dirty industry. In other words, it generates a lot of toxic waste.”
“From 1980 to 1990, something very important happened. In mainland China, authorities made a decision. To produce the world’s best magnets, they were willing to handle those materials (rare earths) at all costs and in a cost-effective way, regardless of the consequences – even if it meant damaging and destroying the environment and water supply of mainland China. This was the deal they made with the devil.”
“They decided to make the world’s best magnets, which ended up polluting mainland China. In the US and the rest of the Western world, if we want to replicate (China’s model of) rare earth processing to compete with China, tit-for-tat, we would also have to damage our environment; and if we want to do it cleanly, we would have to spend more money, and we could never compete with them. In an open market, they (China) will always be much cheaper than the US, Germany, France, the UK, Canada, or anywhere else.”
“Because, at least in the US, we have the Environmental Protection Agency, and the EPA would say, we won’t let you pollute the environment. So we will impose restrictions during the processing, which means American companies will have to pay more to produce high-quality rare earth magnets. It may be 100 to 500 times more expensive than Chinese magnets. This means as long as we’re willing to protect our environment, we can never compete with China.”
So, how can the US break China’s rare earth monopoly? Harris proposed several solutions.
One solution is to subsidize rare earth production companies so they can compete with their Chinese counterparts. However, subsidies are taboo in Western countries.
Harris explained: “There is tremendous pressure internationally not to allow subsidies because if we subsidize American whiskey marketing, then other countries in the world will start subsidizing their products. Suddenly, we’re in chaos. Because we lose free trade.”
Another solution to break China’s rare earth monopoly is to recycle rare earth products, including rare earth magnets from electric car motors, wind turbines, photovoltaic products, solar panels, smartphones, and hard drives.
“Those products are thrown away when their lifecycle ends. They’re dumped in landfills, with fully engineered rare earth products included. What we need to do is extract those products, and we can do so without using harsh chemicals.”
Harris noted that tens of thousands of hard drives are destroyed each year. Some companies actually collect these hard drives, crush them, and extract the neodymium-iron-boron components. Each magnetic hard drive used for data storage contains approximately 100 to 200 grams of fully engineered neodymium-iron-boron magnets.
“These companies put them in plastic bags. You know what they do? They ship them back to China – these companies exist in the US – they take out these magnets from the scrapped products about to enter landfills, then they laboriously pack them in bags. China buys them at a few dollars for every tenth of a kilogram, and then they get mailed to China. Do you know what China does? They reprocess them, then sell them back to the US.”
According to Harris, recycling rare earth products is now a viable business model. He himself intends to start such a company.
The third solution to breaking the CCP’s monopoly, according to Harris, is a revolutionary industry approach. He calls it “Design Around Rare Earth.”
Harris explained: “Designing around rare earth means going back to the basic principles of designing critical components. You either redesign those components to eliminate rare earths or just reduce the amount of rare earths. This has been accepted in Europe, and European electric car manufacturers have accepted it as well.”
Harris revealed that European car manufacturers have already started doing some very important things. “They’re not looking for alternative rare earth supplies. They’re seeking to redesign electric car motors. They’re saying, let’s go back to Nikola Tesla – he invented the alternating current motor in 1905. Let’s assume rare earth magnets were never discovered. Let’s go back to his basic principles, trying to redesign that motor without rare earth elements. You know what? They’ve achieved tremendous success.”
For over a century, humanity has used alternating current motors. Alternating current motors use AC electricity to excite and generate a magnetic field in an electric motor. In the 1970s, rare earth permanent magnets were invented. Due to the high magnetic energy product and coercivity of rare earth permanent magnets, permanent magnet motors have advantages such as smaller size, lighter weight, higher efficiency, and good characteristics.
“Those rare earth permanent magnets have so much magnetic energy, translating into so much torque density, making the motor compact and lightweight. And when the motor is compact and light, it means the electric car and its battery can drive more miles without recharging the battery.”
However, due to environmental destruction from rare earth mining and China’s restrictions on rare earth exports, scientists are researching how to manufacture motors using non-rare earth elements.
Rui Jiawei, Director of the Energy and Industry Research Center of Taiwan ZhongTech Society, wrote that non-rare earth ferrite magnetic materials have become a choice to replace neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets in electric car motors due to their abundant resources and cost-effectiveness.
However, the permanent magnetic properties of ferrite magnets are far lower than rare earth permanent magnetic materials, particularly in coercivity, unable to meet the high-performance magnetic material demands of technological advances. Therefore, scientists have turned to seek new high-performance rare earth-free magnetic materials, one of which is manganese-based hard magnets. Manganese binary alloys such as manganese-aluminum (MnAl), manganese-bismuth (MnBi), and manganese-gallium (MnGa) have become promising rare earth-free permanent magnetic materials in recent years due to their lack of rare earth and precious metals, as well as strong magnetic anisotropy and high Curie temperature.
Harris’s “Design Around Rare Earth” is also a similar approach – designing a motor without using rare earths. At the same time, he plans to utilize artificial intelligence to assist in this work.
Harris said: “Look at the periodic table; design a magnet for me, but you can’t use rare earths. Your algorithm goes to the periodic table (to find suitable elements) to design the magnet with the highest magnetic energy, giving you the highest torque density. This will enable you to manufacture the best electric car motor with the smallest packaging, providing you with the longest battery life. And it must work synergistically with an artificial intelligence engine.”
While scientists propose alternatives to rare earths, the US government continues to build an independent rare earth supply chain. Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration has revived a plan from the Biden era to establish a domestic rare earth magnet supply chain, covering rare earth element extraction, processing, and magnet production. Officials are also searching for proposals to increase the US’s domestic supply of rare earth magnets within the next six to twelve months.
Harris believes that the US “absolutely” has the technology to establish a rare earth independent supply chain but that doing so in 6 to 12 months is unlikely, while it may be possible in 36 to 50 months.
“I think in three to four years, instead of 6 to 12 months, we can rebuild a domestic supply chain. That’s my stance. However, because of the restrictions imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, it will be much more expensive, and it will be challenging to be competitive in the global market.”
“Unless we take a stance – we form a trade cartel or trade partnership – with our friends Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, and of course, Europe. These trading partners can be used to offset China and its monopolistic power.”
Harris has previously received the Jefferson Science Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences website describes Harris as an outstanding engineer, scientist, inventor, educator, and entrepreneur. His research interests are diverse, covering functional materials and their applications in sensors, radar and communications platforms, nanotechnology, power electronics, and medical diagnosis and treatment equipment. He has published over four hundred peer-reviewed scientific and engineering articles, including book chapters, review articles, and technical pieces, with over 15,000 citations. Additionally, he holds over twenty patents or patent applications. Harris has been elected as a Fellow of renowned societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Physical Society.