Highlights

• Historic congressional hearing exposes China's deliberate 30-year strategy using subsidies, predatory pricing, and export controls to dominate rare earths and lithium—forcing U.S. factory shutdowns within days.
• MP Materials emerges as America's rare earth backbone:
  • $2B invested
  • Pentagon's largest shareholder
  • First U.S. magnet facility in a generation
  • 10-year offtake deals from GM and Apple.
• Bipartisan consensus achieved:
  • Congress agrees U.S. must shorten permitting
  • Counter predatory pricing
  • Rebuild domestic refining through public-private partnerships to restore economic sovereignty.

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Washington just delivered one of the most consequential hearings in the history of U.S. critical minerals policy—a rare moment where executives, lawmakers, and national security leaders aligned on a single message: America is out of time. China’s dominance is no longer a warning. It is a reality as declared to the Select Committee on the CCP (opens in a new tab)

The testimony (opens in a new tab)—spanning MP Materials, Lithium Americas, and others—reads like a coordinated historical document. For the first time, the U.S. industrial base is laying out, point by point, the structural traps that allowed Beijing to corner rare earths, lithium, and magnets, and what it will take for the United States to claw back control.

This article captures that record.

The Throughline: China’s Strategy Was Deliberate—and It Worked

Across witnesses, a consistent picture emerged.

China used a 30-year playbook:

• State-backed subsidies
• Predatory pricing cycles
• Acquisitions of foreign deposits
• Control of pricing centers (Shanghai Metals Market, LME)
• Massive overcapacity designed to collapse global prices
• Export controls deployed at strategic choke points

Lithium Americas’ CEO put it bluntly:

“China views dominance over critical minerals as geopolitical strategy.”

MP Materials’ Chief Communications Officer echoed:

“Beijing’s escalation this year was a wake-up call.”

The hearing documented predatory pricing so severe that even China’s CATL publicly admitted it suppressed lithium prices intentionally—only stopping when it achieved its objective.

MP Materials: The Case Study of American Resilience—and Vulnerability

MP Materials delivered the most sweeping testimony of the day.

Key verified claims:

• Mountain Pass is the only scaled rare earth mine and processor in the U.S.
• Over $1B in private capital invested since 2017
• Workforce growth from 8 employees to nearly 1,000
• First U.S. magnet manufacturing facility in a generation (Fort Worth)
• Another $1B committed through a Pentagon public–private partnership
• Price floor agreement to protect against Chinese predatory pricing
• 10-year magnet offtake agreements with GM and Apple
• Pentagon becomes MP’s largest shareholder—taxpayers share upside

In short:

MP Materials is no longer just a mine. It is the backbone of America’s rare earth industrial strategy.

But the executives’ warning was equally clear:

“Rare earths are a small upstream industry… but they underpin trillions in downstream economic activity.”

Everything from robotics and EV motors to AI accelerators, missile systems, and semiconductor tools uses rare earth magnets. Without them, the U.S. economy stops.

Lithium Americas: The Lithium Frontline of the Same War

Lithium is suffering from the same price manipulation that crushed rare earths a decade ago.

Lithium Americas testified that:

• China controls 70%+ of global lithium processing
• China produces 80% of the world’s batteries
• Thacker Pass is the only fully permitted, under-construction U.S. lithium project
• DOE granted a $2.26B loan to scale Phase 1
• 10-year permitting timelines are killing domestic investment
• China uses price suppression to stall Western competitors

Again, the message:

“Onshoring large-scale lithium production is not optional.”

A Rare Moment of Bipartisan Consensus

The testimony showed unified agreement across Congress:

• America must shorten permitting timelines
• America must counter predatory pricing
• America must rebuild domestic refining and magnet-making
• America must reward companies sourcing U.S.-origin minerals
• America must build alliances to break China’s chokehold

The rare earth vulnerabilities exposed by China’s export controls this year forced the issue. Factory shutdowns in the U.S. happened within days—proof that the supply chain is one disruption away from systemic failure.

The Record, As It Stands

What emerged from the hearing is crystal clear:

1. China’s dominance was not an accident—it was strategy.
2. The U.S. offshored, underinvested, and moved too slow.
3. Predatory pricing destroyed American refining before it even began.
4. MP Materials and Lithium Americas are rebuilding what was lost—but need protection.
5. The Pentagon is now a direct investor in the rare earth-industrial base.
6. Public–private partnerships are no longer optional—they are survival.

This is not a debate about mining.

This is a debate about national survival and economic sovereignty.

Rare Earth Exchanges will continue documenting every development, every testimony, every contradiction, and every breakthrough as the U.S. rewires its supply chains for the 21st century.

See the testimony to via YouTube (opens in a new tab).

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