Highlights

• America's permitting system requires 4-9 years for mine approvals, creating a structural choke point preventing the U.S. from rebuilding its rare earth magnet supply chain despite domestic deposits.
• China controls 70% of global mining and 90% of refining through coordinated industrial policy and fast approvals.
• U.S. federal investments cannot succeed without streamlined permitting.
• Investors should track the SPEED Act and PERMIT Act as these bills will determine future supply stability, pricing, and whether domestic producers can reduce dependence on China's export controls.

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When China tightened rare earth export controls yet again, it didn’t expose a new weakness—it illuminated the same one the U.S. has lived with for decades. James Morrone’s Las Vegas Review-Journal (opens in a new tab) commentary argues that America’s permitting system, not China’s tactics alone, is the deeper structural choke point.

He’s right to highlight the bottleneck: between 2020 and 2023, the United States imported 70% of its rare earth metal supply from China, despite holding significant domestic deposits and having once led the world in rare earth extraction and processing.

Morrone’s framing is directionally sound but incomplete. Permitting delays matter—but they are not the only reason China controls 70% of global mining and 90% of global refining. Beijing’s dominance stems from decades of coordinated industrial policy, cost externalization, and strategic monopolization. Still, Morrone’s core argument holds: America cannot rebuild a magnet supply chain if it cannot build the projects required to sustain one.

Where the Argument Lands, and Where It Needs Nuance

Morrone accurately notes that federal approvals take four to five years, while mine permitting can stretch to eight or nine—consistent with McKinsey’s findings. He also correctly notes that environmental litigation adds cost and delay.

But his narrative underemphasizes an important truth: some lawsuits reveal genuine flaws in applications, and environmental safeguards remain a legitimate societal priority. The challenge is not eliminating regulation—it is making it functional.

Where Morrone gestures toward a broader point is in his suggestion that industrial policy alone cannot fix structural bottlenecks. He does not reject federal involvement. Rather, he argues that without permitting reform, industrial policy—no matter how well funded—cannot achieve its intended outcomes.

On this, he is aligned with most global evidence: China’s success relies on fast approvals + heavy state coordination. The U.S. currently has the latter, but not the former.

Why This Matters for Rare Earth Investors

Permitting reform is not an abstract policy fight—it determines whether the U.S. can produce NdPr oxide, Dy/Tb feedstock, or magnet metals at a meaningful scale. Recent Pentagon conditional loans and equity injections into MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, and ReElement Technologies show federal seriousness, but without streamlined permitting, refining will grow faster than mining—deepening the feedstock gap.

Morrone is correct that Americans “desperately need a better approach.” The real solution is not deregulation alone, nor industrial policy alone, but a combined framework: permitting reform plus targeted federal incentives plus private capital. That is, in effect, the same sort of architecture that enabled China’s rise, and one that President Trump is revitalizing.

Investors should closely track the debate around the SPEED Act and PERMIT Act. These bills will determine future supply, pricing stability, and whether domestic magnet makers can lock in upstream materials rather than remain dependent on China’s export licensing regime.

Citation

Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal / InsideSources.com, Dec. 2, 2025

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