This past Friday, Beijing, in response to the new U.S. tariffs, announced controls on exports of medium and heavy rare-earths.
I view these recent trade developments as a catalyst that further strengthens my favorite mining stocks investment theses.
The most recent Chinese export restrictions Friday include heavy rare-earth elements samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium to the U.S. This is just the most recent of many such export restrictions over recent years, even recent months.
Heavy rare earth mining company USA Rare Earth ticker USAR stock was up +16% Friday, despite the huge overall stock market sell-off. The relative strength is significant to me as very few stocks were positive Friday. The only major asset higher was U.S. Treasury bonds as investors sought safety.
While the public and Wallstreet are hyper-focused on the tariffs, capital markets and economic consequences I see the element export controls as providing actionable opportunity catalysts. I see further catalysts likely also as we now have a clear trend with how China is reacting to trade tensions with export controls.
These recent tariff retaliatory actions from China are important because China processes approximately 90% of the world's rare earth elements and supplies 78% of U.S. demand.
In December 2024, China banned exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the U.S., citing their dual-use applications in semiconductors and defense technologies.
In February 2025, licensing requirements were put on tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, indium, and molybdenum. These metals are critical for electronics. To me this strengthens, even further, the investment thesis in U.S. rare earths and critical mining operations.
In addition, just weeks ago President Donald Trump on March 20,2025 made an executive order titled “Immediate Measures to Increase America’s Mineral Production.”
This directive aims to boost domestic production of critical minerals and reduce reliance on foreign imports. It is using the Defense Production Act (DPA).
The DPA is invoked to accelerate domestic mineral production by prioritizing mining projects critical to national security and industrial needs.
Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of the Interior (DOI), are directed to identify and expedite priority mineral production projects.
The order broadens the definition of "critical minerals" to include uranium, copper, potash, gold, and any other materials deemed essential by the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council.
I speculate many of these companies could possibly even be protected further with grants or further federal orders.
These rare elements are key to defense systems, renewable energy technologies, and advanced electronics. This supply shock could significantly drive up prices. This could benefit the mining companies profits.
China supplies 63% of the antimony we use here in the U.S. Antimony is crucial for things like military equipment, metal alloys, electronics etc.
I've mentioned many diversified rare earth miners I like already on my X/Twitter account. Some are tickers NB UAMY EMX TMRC CRML NAK in addition to the new ones in this post.
Rare Earth Moly
Another key element China has made export controls on is molybdenum. In February of this year China put a control on molybdenum and other metals like tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, and indium. Exporters now need approval from China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs, creating bottlenecks in processing shipments.
China supplies roughly half of the molybdenum or moly the U.S. uses.
Moly is extremely crucial in metal steel making, as it strengthens steel and maintains it in many other ways, like helping steel strength and stability at elevated temperatures.
The largest suppliers of steel to the U.S. are Canada, Brazil, and Mexico, which collectively accounted for about 49% of U.S. steel imports. If trade tensions further escalate perhaps the U.S. will need to make more steel domestically. Regardless, moly is always needed.
The Northern Dynasty's (NAK) Alaska Pebble deposit contains an estimated 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum, making it one of the largest undeveloped moly resources in the world. It has yet to be approved and is not certain to but these recent trade events may further increase the chances in my view.
Pebble also has one of the worlds largest undeveloped copper resource in the whole world. There are 80.6 billion pounds of copper in total, according to some estimates. Conservative measured and indicated estimates are 57 billion pounds of copper with which is still a gigantic number.
Perpetua Resources Corp ticker (PPTA) just got approval in January to go ahead with the moly Stibnite project.
Stibnite’s 148-million-pound antimony reserve is the only identified domestic source in the US and could supply 35% of the country’s antimony demand in its first six years.
Other notable companies include Miner MP Materials (MP) owns the Mountain Pass site, which is the only large rare earth mining site of scale in the Western Hemisphere. Another rare earth miner I added to the basket is Critical Metals CRML. They have an interest in the Tanbreez Rare Earth Project in Greenland. It's one of the largest rare earth deposits globally, with an estimated 4.7 billion metric tons of host rock. "They plan to invest $10 million in further exploration and drilling by the end of this year. Once this investment is completed, the company can increase its equity stake from 42% to 92.5% by issuing additional shares worth $116 million (according to Benzinga)." There are plenty of other publicly traded miners who mine moly, but they also mine other metals with economic slowdown sensitivity like copper. These stocks have extremely high beta and aren't going to generate alpha in a market sell-off, however, when volatility is lower they can be attractive.
One such company is Freeport-McMoran (FCX) is a big mining company and one of the largest producers of moly globally.
I have picked mine based on recent months technical strength. There are also a slew of junior miners that trade on the Toronto exchange but I'm focusing on ADRs here.
Iluka Resources ticker ILKAY, is constructing Australia’s first fully integrated rare earth refinery. It appears to produce only the dysprosium and terbium on the new China list.
The stock trades on very, very thin volume so one would need to be catious of this. It's in a long downtrend, and to me, needs to get better technicals and relative strength before I'd personally consider it.
My final thoughts are there are intermediate investing opportunities in these companies as catalyst trades with small position sizes. I don't like individual mining companies as long-term investments (1-2+ years) from watching many over the years.
Some cycles certain companies stocks perform well and some cycles they don't. In the case of gold and silver it's often more advantageous to hold vehicles like ETFs,futures or even the physical itself. Full Disclosure:I hold shares of NB UAMY NAK ( stock and calls and put hedges) I plan on purchasing USAR stock and MP soon.