Highlights

• India-U.S. cooperation on critical mineral recycling is strategically appealing but faces significant scale and technological constraints that limit its near-term effectiveness.
• Recycling cannot substitute for primary production due to limited end-of-life volumes, low collection rates, and complex separation processes that mirror mining bottlenecks.
• Effective supply chain diversification requires pairing recycling with sustained investment in mining, separation, metallurgy, and manufacturing—not treating circularity as a geopolitical shortcut.

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India–U.S. critical minerals cooperation under the microscope as an opinion piece from ThePrint argues (opens in a new tab) that India–U.S. cooperation on critical-mineral recycling could meaningfully reduce dependence on China. The premise is attractive. Recycling promises speed, circularity, and political palatability. Yet beneath the optimistic framing lies a familiar pattern in critical-minerals commentary: a strong diagnosis of the problem, followed by an incomplete prescription for solving it.

Where the Argument Holds Water

The article is right on several fundamentals. Critical minerals and rare earth elements underpin electric vehicles, defense systems, data centers, and grid infrastructure. Supply concentration—particularly China’s dominance across mining, separation, refining, and magnet manufacturing—is real and well documented. The reference to demand growth broadly aligns with outlooks from bodies such as the International Energy Agency, which consistently warn of steep mineral demand growth under energy-transition scenarios.

The piece is also correct that recycling will play a role. Secondary supply can buffer shocks, reduce waste, and complement primary mining. India’s participation in the Mineral Security Partnership does signal geopolitical alignment with Western supply-chain diversification efforts.

Where Optimism Outruns Physics

What the article underplays is scale. Recycling today cannot substitute for primary rare earth production. End-of-life volumes for magnets, batteries, and electronics remain limited relative to projected demand growth. Collection rates are low, feedstock is heterogeneous, and separation remains technologically complex and capital-intensive.

Describing recycling as “easier and cheaper” than mining is context-dependent at best. In rare earths, separation chemistry—not ore extraction—is the dominant bottleneck. Recycling inherits that same constraint. Without domestic separation, alloying, and magnet-making capacity, recycled material risks flowing back into China-centric processing networks.

The Quiet Bias: Circularity as a Shortcut

The article’s bias is subtle but common: presenting circular-economy narratives as a near-term geopolitical fix. Recycling is framed less as a supplement and more as a strategic workaround. That framing may appeal to policymakers wary of permitting battles and environmental opposition, but it risks misleading investors and the public about timelines and feasibility.

What is missing is a clear acknowledgment that recycling only works at scale after decades of product deployment. You cannot recycle what has not yet been built, used, and discarded.

Why This Matters for the Rare Earth Supply Chain

The central takeaway is not that recycling is unimportant. It is that over-indexing on it can delay harder decisions. India–U.S. cooperation will matter most if recycling is paired with sustained investment in mining, separation, metallurgy, and magnet manufacturing. Without that foundation, recycling risks becoming a diplomatic talking point rather than a material supply-chain solution.

Citation: Thorat, S., ThePrint, Dec. 26, 2025.

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