Highlights

• The New York Times overstates Solvay's U.S. partnerships as transformative when they're incremental commercial links between existing Western midstream players.
• Europe isn't lagging behind America—Solvay's French separation facility positions Europe as an essential link in U.S. rare earth supply chain reshoring efforts.
• The article misrepresents China's export controls as tariff retaliation and overlooks Europe's emerging mining projects and refining capabilities in development.

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How about a headline that overpromises! The New York Times (opens in a new tab) wants readers to believe Europe’s “biggest rare earths producer” just forged transformative U.S. partnerships—and that these deals prove Europe is lagging America in the race to escape China. It’s a clean narrative. Too clean. The reality is more granular, more technical, and far less dramatic.

Solvay’s La Rochelle plant is a major global separation facility outside China (note they are just firing up), but calling it “the world’s most prodigious” is marketing language—not supply-chain fact. Lynas Malaysia still processes more primary rare earth oxides, and Energy Fuels is now moving meaningful mixed carbonate volumes from the U.S. into separation circuits. The NYT leans into a simplification that sounds good on a deadline but doesn’t match tonnage tables.

The Actual Deals: Useful, Yes — Transformative, No

Shipping separated oxides from France to Noveon Magnetics? That’s not a tectonic shift—it’s a logical commercial link. Noveon already imports oxides for magnet making. The Solvay–LCM partnership? That’s two established Western midstream players aligning supply and demand in the U.S. market. These are incremental, not game-changing, steps.

The Times frames these deals as evidence that “the United States is forging ahead” while “Europe lags.” But Solvay is a European processor selling into an American magnet maker. If anything, the deals reflect Europe’s integration into U.S. strategy—not its decline.

Faulty Assumption #1: China Is “Curbing Access”

The NYT repeats a common misunderstanding: that China’s export-control behavior is purely retaliatory against Trump tariffs. In truth, China’s 2024–2025 REE controls—especially on Dy/Tb-heavy materials—are long-planned policy tools to tighten value-chain leverage. They are not sudden “responses.”

The Times oversimplifies geopolitics into a tariff-driven morality play, masking a decade of Chinese industrial strategy.

Assumption #2: Europe Has No Rare Earth Mining

• The article breezily claims Europe has “little rare earth mining.” Accurate only if you ignore multiple development efforts.  True, none are live yet, but much like in America, they are headed in that direction.
• LKAB’s Kiruna REE-phosphate project (Sweden)
• Greenland’s Kvanefjeld and Kringlerne deposits (geopolitically adjacent)
• Various EU-funded recycling and extraction pilots

Europe’s issue in addition to building the mines out is refining scale and consistency, certainly not total geological absence.

Why This Actually Matters for Investors

Here’s the real story: Solvay is positioning itself as a Western midstream anchor connecting Australian ore, European separation, and American magnet manufacturing. This triangulation supports U.S. reshoring efforts but does not diminish European influence. In fact, it increases it. Europe now becomes a required link in the American supply chain—at least until U.S. domestic separation fully matures.

The NYT misses that entirely.

So…..

Here Rare Earth Exchanges evaluates The New York Times report about Solvay’s U.S. rare-earth agreements, identifying inaccuracies and oversimplifications. It clarifies Solvay’s real role, corrects misconceptions about Europe and China, and frames the deals’ true significance for global supply-chain investors.

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