At the edge of California’s Mojave Desert, the Mountain Pass mine once gave the United States a quiet but powerful advantage. For decades, this open pit in the desert supplied much of the world with rare earth elements that make modern technology and modern warfare possible.
Today, reporters from Fox News, financial analysts and national security writers describe a very different picture. The mine that once anchored America’s rare earth dominance went through environmental scandal, bankruptcy, and shutdown, while China moved steadily to lock up mining, refining, and magnet production. Now the Trump administration is trying to rebuild an entire mine to magnet supply chain and undo decades of neglect.
Mountain Pass: A Strategic Gold Mine Hiding in Plain Sight
Mountain Pass sits on the south flank of the Clark Mountain Range in San Bernardino County, California, about 53 miles southwest of Las Vegas. Geologists describe it as a world class deposit. The ore body lies in a 1.4 billion year old carbonatite and contains 8 to 12 percent rare earth oxides, mostly in the mineral bastnäsite. The deposit is about 200 feet thick and 2,300 feet long, and has been called the largest single known concentration of rare earth minerals.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Mountain Pass dominated worldwide rare earth production. At its peak, it supplied roughly 70 percent of the world’s rare earths and, for thirty years from the mid 1960s through the mid 1990s, met most of global rare earth metal consumption. The ore yielded neodymium, lanthanum, cerium, europium, and other elements needed for color television phosphors, early electronics, radar, and guidance systems.
As Fox News puts it, in the 1980s “Mountain Pass was the beating heart of a quiet American advantage.” The mine’s output powered radar systems, early computer chips, and “the guidance of precision munitions.” It meant that when the United States built advanced weapons and high tech devices, the materials often came from its own soil.
How the Mojave Mine Fell Out of American Hands
The decline of Mountain Pass was not caused by geology. The ore was still there. The collapse came from a mix of environmental failures, changing owners, and intense price pressure from China.
The mine began with the Molybdenum Corporation of America in the 1950s, later renamed Molycorp. Union Oil bought it in 1977, and Chevron acquired Union, including the mine, in 2005. During the 1980s and 1990s, the company piped wastewater as far as 14 miles to evaporation ponds. That wastewater was radioactive because the ore naturally contains thorium and radium. The pipeline ruptured dozens of times. Federal investigators later documented around 60 spills between 1984 and 1998, with some never reported. About 600,000 gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste leaked onto the desert floor.
By the late 1990s, regulators forced the company into cleanup plans, fines, and strict oversight. At the same time, China was ramping up its own rare earth industry with much weaker environmental controls. Chinese producers could sell rare earths at very low prices, undercutting Mountain Pass and other Western operations.
In 1998, the Mountain Pass separation plant stopped producing refined rare earth compounds and only produced concentrate. In 2002, after the spills and under heavy price competition from Chinese mines, the operation shut down. Previously mined ore was still processed for a while, but the core refining stopped.
A private group bought the mine in 2008 and formed a new Molycorp Minerals to revive it. The company raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an initial public offering, restarted mining in 2012, and built new processing facilities. But by 2015, low Chinese prices and debt crushed the effort. Molycorp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with 1.4 billion dollars in outstanding bonds, and the mine was again headed for closure.
In 2017, a group led by JHL Capital Group and QVT Financial bought the mine out of bankruptcy for around 20.5 million dollars, and created MP Materials. That company resumed mining and began restoring processing, but by that time the strategic position of the United States had changed completely.
The Policy Mistake That Gave Away Magnet Technology
While Mountain Pass declined, another decision quietly shifted critical know how to China. In the early 1990s, a General Motors subsidiary called Magnaquench made about 85 percent of the magnets used in precision guided missiles and other U.S. defense systems.
In 1995, GM sold Magnaquench to a consortium that included two Chinese entities. Fox News reports that “within a year, the entire product line had been replicated in China, and the U.S. had lost its magnet making process almost overnight.” Abigail Hunter, who heads the Ambassador Alfred Hoffman Jr. Center for Critical Mineral Strategy at SAFE, argues that this was more than just a bad business deal. She calls it “a strategic surrender,” and explains that “we were focused on the internet and globalization, not on where our materials were coming from.” In her view, American policy became “episodic rather than strategic.”
That sale meant that even when ore came from the United States, the essential midstream technology for turning rare earths into high performance magnets increasingly lived in China.
China’s Long Game: From Dirt to Dominance
China followed a long term strategy that American leaders largely ignored. As Fox News recounts, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously said in 1987, “The Middle East has oil; China has rare earths.” Beijing understood that control of these minerals could give it leverage over countries that depended on modern electronics and advanced weaponry.
Over the next several decades, China poured money into mining, refining, and manufacturing. According to Wade Senti, president of Advanced Magnet Lab, “The United States had Mountain Pass and a few other capabilities tied to companies like GM. But our total capacity was under 2,000 metric tons a year. Meanwhile, China poured money into innovation, refining and manufacturing at a scale that far exceeded what we ever had.”
China’s advantage was not only size, but also state support and weak environmental rules. Western mines had to meet strict regulations and pay for cleanup and safety. Chinese producers could operate at lower cost and then use low prices to push competitors out of the market. An ACZ editor notes that “China strategy of subsidizing markets until they own them is illegal in most countries, subject to internal anti trust and anti monopoly laws.” In rare earths, that strategy “has made a dangerous situation for the U.S.”
By 2009, China supplied more than 96 percent of the world’s rare earths. Today it still controls roughly 70 percent of mining and around 90 percent of refining. A report cited by Fox News calls refining “the most strategic and profitable step in the chain.”
China has shown it is willing to use that power. In 2010, it quietly halted rare earth exports to Japan during a territorial dispute. In 2019, Bloomberg reported on plans to restrict U.S. access to heavy rare earths. In 2025, China went further and stopped exporting seven types of heavy rare earths and the magnets made from them, hitting industries that make electric vehicles, smartphones, fighter jets, drones, and guided missiles.
Drew Horn, a former U.S. official who focused on strategic minerals, summarized the stakes: “Rare earths are in everything… the EV and auto space, cell phones, defense key components, space travel.” He said China “has essentially created an all powerful monopoly” over the market.
China’s goal is not to stay a low cost supplier forever. As Brazilian Rare Earths CEO Bernardo da Veiga told Yahoo Finance, “China doesn’t want to sell you rare earths, they want to sell you cars.” That means China wants to keep the valuable materials at home and export finished products, while foreign competitors face shortages and higher costs.
A Series of Warnings from Export Bans and Licensing Games
China’s moves on exports have served as warning shots over the years. In earlier disputes, it used a licensing system that slowed exports without cutting them off entirely. Michael Silver, CEO of American Elements, recalled being told that export licenses would take 45 days, but worried that “the process could drag on” and supplies outside China could run low.
In April 2025, Beijing took a more direct step by halting exports of several heavy rare earth elements and related magnets to all countries. The impact was largest in the United States, since many American factories depend heavily on Chinese supplies. Daniel Pickard, chairman of the critical minerals advisory committee for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, asked, “Does the export control or ban potentially have severe effects in the U.S.?” and answered his own question: “Yes.” He warned that a prolonged disruption could damage China’s reputation as a dependable supplier.
National security experts pointed to the particular danger for the military. James Litinsky, executive chairman of MP Materials, noted that “drones and robotics are widely considered the future of warfare” and warned that “based on everything we are seeing, the critical inputs for our future supply chain are shut down.”
At the same time, American leaders and industry executives emphasized that the real bottleneck is processing and magnet manufacturing. Elon Musk, whose companies rely on rare earths, argued that the minerals themselves are not scarce. “Rare earth materials are not all that rare and are found all over the world,” he said. “People understandably tend to think that rare earth mineral deposits are what’s scarce. That is false. They’re everywhere.” What matters, Musk insisted, is “the ability to refine rare earth elements and manufacture magnets.”
Trump’s Strategy: Tariffs, Stockpiles, Mojave, and New Deals
Faced with export bans and supply disruptions, the Trump administration has moved to treat rare earths as a strategic battlefield. Its approach has several parts.
First, it has tied rare earths directly to trade talks with China. In June 2025, President Trump announced a new deal with Beijing after talks in London. In a Truth Social post, he wrote, “Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me. We are getting a total of 55 percent tariffs, China is getting 10 percent. Relationship is excellent!” He also said China would supply “full magnets, and any necessary rare earths,” which he described as a key requirement for U.S. industries, including electric vehicles, defense, and electronics.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the agreement “put meat on the bones” of an earlier deal reached in Geneva that had fallen apart when China failed to deliver shipments. He explained that under the new deal, “They are going to approve all applications for magnets from United States companies right away,” and joked that both sides had been locked in “mutual assured annoyance” before Trump’s phone call with Xi Jinping.
Under the framework, the United States keeps a combined 55 percent tariff on Chinese imports. Lutnick stressed that this level “is not a new tariff,” but rather the sum of existing measures, including a reciprocal tariff, earlier duties from Trump’s first term, and penalties related to fentanyl trafficking. Asked whether tariffs would move again, he replied, “You can definitely say that,” and argued that the administration is seeking predictability so businesses can plan.
Second, Trump has ordered a large national effort to build a rare earth stockpile on U.S. soil. According to reporting cited by the ACZ Editor, the plan includes an executive order to allow deep sea mining of rare earths and battery metals, in partnership with The Metals Company, a Canadian firm that can extract polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor. A source told the Financial Times that the goal is to “create large quantities ready and available on U.S. territory to be used in the future” if trade with China breaks down.
Third, the administration is pursuing “friend shoring” with allied nations. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Washington, the United States and India launched a joint initiative called “Strategic Mineral Recovery,” with a goal to accelerate “research and development and promoting investment across the entire critical mineral value chain.” In parallel, the Trump team has signed multi billion dollar arrangements with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and several African nations to secure new supplies of rare earths and other key minerals outside of China.
Fox News reports that one framework with Australia commits both countries to co invest roughly one billion dollars each in rare earth and battery metal ventures. Agreements with Japan and South Korea focus on non Chinese refining and magnet production. Deals with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo aim to trace and develop mineral routes. A reconstruction fund for Ukraine gives U.S. firms preferred access to future mining projects. Together, these deals represent what Fox calls “the most aggressive U.S. mineral diplomacy since the Cold War.”
Fourth, Trump has backed a direct government stake in Mountain Pass. The administration has taken a 15 percent ownership position in MP Materials in what Fox calls “an unprecedented arrangement” and used grants, loans, and purchase guarantees to support the mine, its processing plant in California, and a planned magnet factory in Texas.
Abigail Hunter describes this as a turning point. She notes that for the first time, the federal government is backing an entire supply chain, “from mine to magnet,” and using every tool it has. She also warns that fixing the problem is not quick. “It’s a ten year project, not something we can do in a year,” she says.
Rebuilding a Mine to Magnet Ecosystem
The challenge now is to rebuild a full rare earth ecosystem in the United States and friendly countries. Both Hunter and Wade Senti believe that the next several years will be decisive. Hunter argues that “we have to reform permitting so we can actually build mines and refineries here.” She criticizes the attitude that rare earths are “someone else’s problem” and calls for a return to real industrial strategy.
Senti emphasizes the work ahead in magnet production and midstream processing. “There’s a lot of work to do,” he says. “Companies like ours are boots on the ground trying to unlock the bottlenecks.”
The Department of Defense has already committed more than 450 million dollars to rare earth and magnet projects, probing deep into supply chains to secure the basic components of military hardware. Energy Department incentives focus on magnets for electric vehicles. A German magnet maker is building a new factory in Sumter, South Carolina, aiming to source rare earths from American projects in California and Texas.
Anthony Di Stasio, a senior U.S. defense official, warns that the process will be slow. “We’re not going to be able to simply flip a switch and get to where we want to be,” he says. The strategy, in his words, is to “go as close to the dirt as we can so we know we’re still going to need it in 15 years.” That means securing mining, processing, and manufacturing in a way that can survive future price wars and export bans.
Trade law is also tightening. Since 2018, U.S. law has restricted the use of Chinese made magnets in American military equipment. By 2027, those restrictions extend to any magnets made from materials mined or processed in China. That rule will cover almost all existing supply, pushing U.S. and allied companies to develop alternative sources.
Drew Horn argues that the United States must create “a variety of incentives, protective measures, tax incentives, funding grants, loan guarantees” to help new and cleaner processing technologies succeed. He also warns that companies that break from Chinese supply chains could face retaliation that cuts through entire industries.
Why Mojave Matters Again
All of this returns the story to the Mojave Desert. The trucks at Mountain Pass are running again. MP Materials has restored mining and begun separating key light rare earths, with Pentagon funding to add heavy rare earth processing. It is building a magnet facility in Texas that would, for the first time in decades, give the United States its own end to end chain from ore to finished magnets.
Yet the legacy of past decisions still hangs over the site. Mountain Pass was once the world’s leading source of rare earth elements. It then shut down after spills, bankruptcies, and a flood of cheap Chinese material. Magnaquench was once the heart of American magnet making and was sold to Chinese buyers who moved the technology overseas. During that time, China subsidized its industry, raised and lowered exports at will, and built a near monopoly.
ACZ analysis warns that this has been “the plan by China for at least a decade, monopolizing rare earth metals and then shutting off the supply at a strategic juncture.” The editor cautions that people should not be surprised if Beijing “has more of this up their sleeves, perhaps they will be able to interrupt supplies from other countries as well.”
Trump’s policies mark a sharp shift from complacency to confrontation. Tariffs, stockpiles, deep sea mining, friendly supply deals, and direct investment in Mountain Pass are all pieces of a larger attempt to undo the quiet concessions of the past. Whether they are enough will depend on how quickly the United States can build mines, refineries, and magnet plants that can survive Chinese price tactics and political pressure.
In the end, the story of rare earths is not just about strange minerals in a desert. It is about whether the world’s leading military and technological power can control the materials that make its jets fly, its missiles steer, its cars move, and its factories run. Mountain Pass, once forgotten in the Mojave, is again at the center of that question.