Highlights

• China dominates 19 of 20 critical minerals with over 70% refining market share.
• China has imposed sweeping export controls covering materials, equipment, and processing technologies.
• Export restrictions have already driven European magnet prices to six times Chinese domestic prices, creating what the IEA calls the mineral equivalent of an oil embargo.
• Western diversification projects are underway in the U.S., Australia, and Vietnam.
• The 8-year average lead time for new facilities means China's leverage remains a strategic reality.

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So is there a new energy iron curtain? The International Energy Agency’s October 23 commentary (opens in a new tab) reads like a dispatch from a slow-motion geopolitical earthquake. China, it warns, is now not just the leading miner but the commanding refiner, separator, and magnet maker for nearly every critical mineral that underpins modern civilization. For 19 of 20 key materials, Beijing sits atop the refining throne with a 70 percent market share. And now, with sweeping new export controls, the world’s industrial arteries may soon pulse to China’s tempo.

That’s no exaggeration: China accounts for 91 percent of global rare-earth separation, 94 percent of permanent-magnet manufacturing, and has just expanded its export restrictions to cover not only rare earths themselves but the very equipment and technologies needed to process them. The IEA’s framing—that this is the mineral equivalent of an oil embargo—is not hyperbole.

The Pulse Beneath the Panic

REEx finds the IEA’s data largely sound and sober. The organization correctly identifies China’s dominance across the value chain, from the clay hills of Jiangxi to the magnet foundries of Ningbo. It's an observation that export controls could throttle global magnet supply is accurate—April’s restrictions already drove European magnet prices to six times those inside China.

Yet, between the statistics hums a note of quiet bias: a subtle narrative of inevitability, as if diversification were merely aspirational. The IEA highlights long lead times for new projects—eight years on average—but downplays the accelerating build-out across the U.S., Australia, Vietnam, and Estonia. Projects like MP Materials’ magnet line and Lynas’ U.S. facility are more than footnotes; they represent the scaffolding of a new industrial counterweight.

The Speculative Shadows

The commentary flirts with alarmism when it projects that the new rules could “dramatically impact” entire sectors. True, licenses and technology restrictions add friction, but China has not yet wielded these controls as a total embargo. For now, the threat is conditional—an instrument of leverage, not destruction. Investors should treat the IEA’s language as a temperature reading, not a countdown clock.  And we cannot forget that China itself needs trade with the West.

The Real Takeaway

China’s dominance isn’t a surprise; it’s the consequence of 30 years of deliberate industrial strategy. The question now is whether the West can match that patience. The IEA’s call for a “Critical Minerals Security Programme” evokes the 1970s oil crisis—but this time, the wells are magnets, not barrels.

The world has entered an era where the magnet is mightier than the sword.

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