What are rare earth minerals, and why are they central to Trump's trade war?

CNN

3 days ago

The US trade war with China has a major sticking point: rare earths minerals.
Last month, President Donald Trump said the United States needed Greenland 'very badly,' renewing his threat to annex the Danish territory. Greenland is a resource-rich island with a plentiful supply of critical minerals, a category that also includes rare earths elements, under its ice sheet. Trump also signed a 'rare earth deal' with Ukraine.
The tussle over rare earths precedes the current administration. China for years has built up near-total control of the materials as part of its wider industrial policy.
Here's what you need to know about rare earths.
Rare earths are 17 metallic elements in the periodic table made up of scandium, yttrium and the lanthanides.
The name 'rare earths' is a bit of a misnomer, as the materials are found throughout the Earth's crust. They are more abundant than gold, but they are difficult and costly to extract and process, and also environmentally damaging.
Rare earths are ubiquitous in the technologies we rely on every day, from smartphones to wind turbines to LED lights and flat-screen TVs. They're also crucial for batteries in electric vehicles as well as MRI scanners and cancer treatments.
Rare earths are also essential for the US military. They're used in F-35 fighter jets, submarines, lasers, satellites, Tomahawk missiles and more, according to a 2025 research note from CSIS.
The International Energy Agency said 61% of mined rare earth production comes from China, and the country controls 92% of the global output in the processing stage.
There's two types of rare earths, categorized by their atomic weights: heavy and light. Heavy rare earths are more scarce, and the United States doesn't have the capabilities for the tough task of separating rare earths after extraction.
'Until the start of the year, whatever heavy rare earths we did mine in California, we still sent to China for separation,' Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN.
However, the Trump administration's announcement of sky-high tariffs on China in April derailed this process. 'China has shown a willingness to weaponize' America's reliance on China for rare earths separation, she said.
The US has one operational rare earth mine in California, according to Baskaran.
On Friday, Trump said on Truth Social that China violated a trade truce put in place last month. Beijing has kept its export controls on seven rare earth minerals and associated products, which were seen as a response to Trump's 'reciprocal tariffs' on Chinese goods announced in April. After agreeing on the truce in Geneva, US officials had expected China to ease export restrictions on those minerals.
The export controls could have a major impact, since the US is heavily reliant on China for rare earths. Between 2020 and 2023, 70% of US imports of rare earth compounds and metals came from the country, according to a US Geological Survey report.
Beyond China, rare earths are also featured in US foreign policy objectives with Ukraine, Greenland and Saudi Arabia.
'Ukraine is a very, very nascent mining industry, and even though it was a part of the conversation, we don't actually have a mapping of what's economically viable,' Baskaran said.
CNN's Nectar Gan and John Liu contributed to this report.