U.S. agencies alarmed by China’s curbs on exports of rare-earth minerals

China also told S Korea to not send any of their supplies either. Picking on poor Donnie boy..

China pressures US ally to block rare earths to US

The Korean Economic Daily reported Tuesday that China's government ordered at least two South Korean transformer manufacturers to halt exports of power equipment containing Chinese-sourced heavy rare earth metals to the U.S. military or its contractors.
The letters reportedly warned that failure to comply could result in regulatory action, including sanctions.

 

I would not get too excited about $8.4 billion. The global rare earths market in 2023 was worth about $3.4 billion, with China controlling about 90% of that, or about $3 billion. If the U.S. coal ash was processed over a 40-year period, it would provide $0.2 billion/yr in RE metals, so it could only displace about 6-7% of China's contribution to the market. And the U.S. would definitely pay more to extract and refine the minerals than China would, so we are losing money on the deal either way.

China raises annual rare earth mining quota to record high in 2020 - MINING.COM