In this episode of the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast, hosts Dustin Olsen and Daniel O’Connor discuss the latest developments in the rare earths and critical minerals industry. They explore U.S. political strategies, China’s dominance in the market, and the challenges faced by the U.S. in catching up. The conversation also highlights the rise of BYD in the automotive sector and the geopolitical implications of rare earth supply chains, emphasizing the need for a coordinated approach to secure resources and maintain competitiveness.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Rare Earths and Critical Minerals
02:24 U.S. Engagement in Global Rare Earths
09:20 Challenges in U.S. Strategy
11:39 BYD’s Rise in the Automotive Industry
15:22 China’s Geopolitical Strategy in EV Markets
20:09 Emerging Players in the Rare Earth Supply Chain
Listen to the REEx Podcast
(opens in a new tab)Transcript
Dustin Olsen (00:01.174)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. You’ve got me, Dustin, and we’ve got Daniel here, again talking about the latest news happening in the industry for rare earths and critical minerals. So Daniel, I’ll have the last sweet cone for you.
Daniel O’Connor (00:17.385)
It’s been very very busy a lot going on. We’re producing a lot of content as you know, there’s New deals it seems like happening almost every week outside of China what they call ex China So, you know, we’ll get into a few of those right now if that’s okay with you Dustin
Dustin Olsen (00:38.818)
Yeah, let’s, yeah, let’s just dive right in.
Daniel O’Connor (00:41.125)
Well, an interesting one is, you know, I’ll set the context. President Trump is working pretty feverishly and aggressively to try to find some rare earths and critical minerals. Wouldn’t you say, Dustin?
Dustin Olsen (00:57.806)
Uh, yeah. Um, he, in fact, I would say he’s working so hard on it that I was talking to someone yesterday. I was like, do you follow politics? Well, they’re like, no, not at all. It’s like, you’ve heard some highlights though. They’re like, yeah. I was like, so you, know, Trump’s trying to buy a Greenland. Yeah, I’ve heard that one. So like it’s getting to be pretty big deal of just what he’s doing and people are becoming more aware.
Daniel O’Connor (01:23.131)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (01:26.575)
Yes, yes. And you know, some things have happened. mean, know, Greenland, you heard what happened with the vice president’s wife out there.
Dustin Olsen (01:26.818)
That’s how hard he’s working.
Dustin Olsen (01:37.304)
Uh-uh, what happened?
Daniel O’Connor (01:38.469)
Well, I think she went out there with a group and they were going to meet with a bunch of Greenlanders. But nobody wanted to meet with them.
and had a protest and you know, and that’s one news source. Maybe that’s fake news. I’m not too sure, but I think there’s a hesitancy among that population. They belong to Denmark. I think that maybe a better approach would be to approach Denmark and say, hey, we’ve been allies for years since after the war, World War II.
Dustin Olsen (02:01.494)
It’s.
Daniel O’Connor (02:22.692)
We need your help here. Let’s do something together in Greenland. And I think that would have been a better pathway. Of course, Canada, you know, President Trump was talking 51st state. Not so sure how that’s going over up in Canada. But they have lot of critical minerals, I’ll tell you. And the other one is Ukraine, of course, and that might be part of some negotiated deal.
Dustin Olsen (02:39.463)
Yeah, it’s probably not. That’s like slap in the face.
Daniel O’Connor (02:52.408)
As we’ve discussed, it’s difficult to get them out of the ground up there. There’s maybe not as much rare earths as they are positioning. If they are, a lot of them are deposited in the Russian-held territory. So it’s tricky. Okay. And so another country that’s serviced and we reported on this week was the DRC, Democratic
Republic of Congo and a group called the Center for Strategic and International Studies, they do these little reports on minerals and rare earths. They put a report together on a pathway to USA and the DRC collaborating to access critical minerals.
mainland China is a big presence in the DRC. And DRC is the largest cobalt producer, I believe. But the DRC has approached the United States because they know the United States is looking now. And so the CSIS, this center, argues that the US needs to urgently engage with DRC to get those critical minerals.
get that sector up and going or risk a permanent strategic loss to China.
Dustin Olsen (04:29.461)
Yeah, didn’t we, we reported that China controls 80 % of the cobalt extraction right now in the DRC. So yeah, there’s not much room left if you want to get in there. Yeah, that’s.
Daniel O’Connor (04:37.445)
Yes.
Yes.
Daniel O’Connor (04:45.136)
Yeah.
20, you I mean, you got to get that some part of the 20%. I mean, you know, it’s we’ll have to see. But I think the key here is, you know, China’s long term investments and infrastructure deals that they do there have outmaneuvered America and Western interests. Okay, Chinese, they bring this long game. Okay.
Another point.
Dustin Olsen (05:17.483)
Yeah. I think what’s interesting here, and maybe it’s the obvious thing, but, you know, when we talk about China, think we think geographically just within their own borders, right? They’re controlling what they can control. But to think that they’re in Africa right now, they control 80 % of what’s going on there. You know, like their reach is so much further than
just within the borders of China. And I think that’s the interesting part here that’s kind of being highlighted as like, wow, talking about being out maneuvered or anything like that. Like, you know, we’re really behind, like China’s been thinking way outside the box here.
Daniel O’Connor (05:49.104)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (05:58.907)
Sorry.
Daniel O’Connor (06:06.02)
Yeah, we’re very, behind. this week, I’ll digress for a minute, we covered stories about how they’re innovating with the products, the products that derive from the rare earth. They’re producing all kinds of advanced products. mean, they’re way, way ahead of us. In some ways, maybe even 20 years. So, yeah.
So I think the key here is this consultancy who often put reports together to try to get governments or corporations to engage with them. They mentioned a comprehensive strategy requiring intra-agency coordination, policy reforms, and strategic diplomatic and financial investments.
Dustin Olsen (06:42.208)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (07:01.156)
They talk about this Tenkei Fungarume mine, which…
China has helped to finance and that’s left the West dangerously outmaneuvered. So the author, Gracelyn Bascarin, who I’ve had email with her before. She’s pretty smart. She produces a lot of reports. The author emphasized that the U.S. must act quickly leveraging financing tools like import, export, import bank.
of the United States known as EXIM or Development Finance Corporation, DFC, and they need to improve geological mapping and reform outdated policies such as section 1502 of Dodd-Frank. So this is like a law that says, you you can’t really do much business in places like DRC because of the ethical environmental problems, et cetera. Okay. So.
But these consultants just say, just reform section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Just not that easy. Unless, of course, if Donald Trump issues an executive order, then you can just throw it
Dustin Olsen (08:17.087)
Easy.
Dustin Olsen (08:24.493)
He’s getting real good with those, isn’t he?
Daniel O’Connor (08:28.924)
my goodness. Yeah, he’s he’s cranking them out. All right, so look, Miss Baskin and Smart, we’ve got some holes in our argument, though. Do you want to hear those dust?
Well, we have a section in the content, and we really invite everybody to come read this content because it’s very unique. When vision meets reality. And, you know, despite its strengths, this the view of Miss Basparan and the CSIS has some notable limitations. You know, the author leans heavily on the assumption that the US government can quickly align its sprawling bureaucracy.
to get deals like this done. you know, even though Donald Trump has issued, you know, some executive orders, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to have a bureaucratic inertia. So, but this group thinks that with DRC, we should be working towards a single mineral strategy. They believe that
They have to have heightened levels of interrupt agency coordination, to get people talking to each other in the government around this topic. And they say that that’s traditionally been slow and politically fraught, particularly given Washington’s polarization and inconsistent Africa policy.
Okay. And that is an issue. So does the executive order, as I mentioned before, does it change all this? Not really. Second, while the brief identifies the DRC’s fragmented tax system and export volatility as obstacles, does it underplay how it trends local corruption and patronage networks, especially within
Daniel O’Connor (10:42.56)
Jic and Minus can let us say impair even the best designed foreign initiative. So there’s a lot of problems over there. There’s a lot of corruption. There’s ecological problems. There’s exploitation problems. And you know, it’s just tricky. It’s very, very tricky. Any questions so far?
Dustin Olsen (11:07.021)
Nope, no question really. just continue to chuckle every time I think or hear comments of people thinking that it’s going to be easy or quick for the United States, much probably less than anyone else to catch up to China. And I’m just like, I’ll believe it when I see it because I think there’s one too many hurdles that we’re going to trip over.
Daniel O’Connor (11:34.788)
We’re Americans, we’re patriots, we want to catch up with China. We’ve been imploring, we’ve been writing about it. Please, let’s catch up with China, but we need industrial policy. We need to look at it all as a system. You can’t just look at getting Greenland.
Dustin Olsen (11:46.637)
you
Daniel O’Connor (11:52.837)
You got look at the whole system. you know, China’s dominance, you know, take DRC stems not only from securing access to raw materials in places like the DRC and its Belt and Road Initiative. That’s a huge trading zone. You know, but they’re also China is expanding the value add that they do.
Dustin Olsen (11:55.159)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (12:22.348)
in manufacturing, so they’re getting more more sophisticated with the technology. The U.S. by contrast still lacks basic refining capacity.
I’ll say that again, we still lack basic refining capacity.
Dustin Olsen (12:40.126)
Operative word there, Basic.
Daniel O’Connor (12:41.38)
Yeah, and frankly, industrial policy coherence, which we don’t have, and we face political and social obstacles to develop such domestic resources, both here and in places like DRC. Also, you know what Ms. Basker and the consultant really didn’t get into much was that the DRC remains a very high risk environment.
plagued by corruption, instability, labor abuses. I mean, it’s not great. it’s, you know, once again, it’s a treasure trove, but so, you know, there’s real challenges with access to this organization, to this nation. You know, I think that it’s probably worthy of
learning more, but again, there’s so many issues and we’re just not, I don’t think designed to help these companies that we would bring in there, you know, really be successful. It’s just, it’s going to be interesting.
Dustin Olsen (13:58.584)
Yes, I will be. Can we move on to another topic? I want to talk about the BYD one that we published. as probably some of our listeners have caught on, big fan of cards, love the automotive industry. And at the end of last year, we reported that BYD was set to surpass the
Daniel O’Connor (14:04.548)
Yes.
Yes, you got it.
Dustin Olsen (14:27.179)
biggest of the biggest auto manufacturers out there, Ford, Toyota, which is a big deal. Cause when you think about the last time a newcomer to the industry was able to gain that sort of market share was Tesla and Tesla has been around for a long time. Right. But, even Tesla had a slow start. Right. And honestly, I think they still have a slow start. They can’t get anything out the production line.
Daniel O’Connor (14:43.727)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (14:48.527)
Long time no.
Dustin Olsen (14:57.077)
in a timely manner, but, so to have BYD come in and, just ask for decade, we’d take claim the top spot. Like how crazy is that?
Daniel O’Connor (15:05.124)
Yeah, I mean.
Daniel O’Connor (15:09.754)
Well, check this, Dustin. So the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer, again, they’re called BYD, surpasses Tesla with $107 billion in 2024.
A significant milestone for the Chinese company. Of course, the BYD success is deeply tied to the China rare earth complex. BYD’s rise represents a coordinated geopolitical strategy to dominate global EV markets through strategic resource and manufacturing investments.
There’s some kind of strategy associated with BYD and we know it. It has to do with the other strategy we spoke about, which is ascending to a dominant position. The cash helps them get the currency. But they’re at $107 billion and Elon Musk has gone on the record to say that he’s not sure that they would be good to compete against.
Dustin Olsen (16:18.349)
Next.
Daniel O’Connor (16:18.736)
So, yeah, so I mean we have, these guys are big, they’re growing, you know, they’re gonna be here for the long run.
Dustin Olsen (16:29.805)
They are. And this is just one industry though. Like what if they did this with others and came in and just wiped everyone out? Because I think eventually, yes, we’re all going to move towards an EV centric community. You know, it’s green, it’s better. Do you know why? think once we figure out that infrastructure, they’ll be here to stay. But if you’ve got BYD coming in,
Daniel O’Connor (16:49.296)
Right.
Daniel O’Connor (16:56.997)
Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (16:59.757)
to not just China, but other countries and undercutting the competition. What does that look like? What does that say for companies that have been around forever, like Ford, that can no longer compete in China? They’ve tried to double down in Europe, but now BYD’s moved into Europe. Well, what’s going to happen to Ford? It’s scary, honestly.
Daniel O’Connor (17:15.92)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (17:22.99)
Yeah, I mean, it’s.
Yeah, yeah, it is.
Dustin Olsen (17:29.909)
our domestic employment opportunities, I think are at risk because of what China is doing.
Daniel O’Connor (17:35.515)
Yeah, it’s for sure. And again, their success is tightly tied to China’s command of the rare earth element supply chain, specifically neodymium and praseodymium used
Dustin Olsen (17:59.854)
They’re hard words. I get it.
Daniel O’Connor (18:04.452)
So it’s just, again, mean, it’s exploding the growth and I don’t think you can stop it.
Dustin Olsen (18:12.961)
No, I don’t, I don’t think so. Not when you can get these rare earth process products below wholesale pricing. I mean, good luck. Like, and that, that’s, I think that’s the true issue at hand, right? It’s like, we can’t compete with the people who control the processing and they’re undercutting everyone along the way.
Daniel O’Connor (18:19.972)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (18:41.569)
taking everyone out of the knees.
Daniel O’Connor (18:44.026)
Yeah, yeah, it’s something. It’s really something. You they’ve been trying to build a huge facility in Mexico and I think Trump stopped it somehow, some way, but I think it’s just a matter of time before BYD makes itself known. We say in our article, it’s not merely a business story, it’s a geopolitical signal, BYD.
Dustin Olsen (19:15.757)
you
Daniel O’Connor (19:15.76)
China behind the scenes is executing a coordinated strategy to dominate global EV markets through rare earth leverage. So they have all these rare earths that you need to produce the products. And again, they’re just, it’s like clockwork. They’re just executing. They’re just executing Dustin.
Dustin Olsen (19:38.53)
Yeah, they’ve got the momentum now, I think. And in the back of my mind, like with these ex-China deal that we’re talking about, that we’re seeing more and more of, I wonder if that is a concern for China and their plans, if they feel it’s a hindrance, like maybe it’s like a minor itch in what’s going on. But…
Daniel O’Connor (19:42.447)
Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (20:07.361)
I don’t know. wonder if it’s the snowballs already coming down the mountain already, like you can’t stop it no matter what you try. Or are we catching it soon enough? we see the writing on the wall soon enough to where we can do something about it?
Daniel O’Connor (20:17.839)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (20:29.264)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, not sure. It’s going to be a very interesting time. I’m not sure. Again, let’s just take a look at this critically, Dustin. mean, you know, take Tesla. I Tesla, think, is somehow bypassing some of the tariffs. You know that Trump just put a 25 % tariff.
Dustin Olsen (20:29.994)
I think that remains to be seen.
Daniel O’Connor (20:57.69)
So, you know, if you have, we’re having to use these aggressive tariffs to try to enforce our way into markets rather than just selling. mean, you know, rather than just people love the products, they’re just like, bring them to us. We want them. Right. I just, I don’t know. You know, obviously I’m not the president, so it’s, you know, that’s why he got voted in. So he has to make that call. But do you see what I mean?
Dustin Olsen (21:29.077)
Yeah, it’s.
It seemed very abrupt, very illogical on, know, on one hand of it. Just like, why, why would we kind of bite the hand that’s feeding us? Um, essentially like, so it feels like, and a lot of are upset by that, that approach. Like, why would you do that? That doesn’t make sense. Um, but on the other hand, what’s going to happen if the hand that’s feeding you slaps you in the face?
Daniel O’Connor (21:44.975)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (21:49.274)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (21:53.583)
Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (22:02.349)
You know, like, you don’t want that either.
Daniel O’Connor (22:05.82)
That’s true. That’s a good point. I don’t want to be slapped in the face.
Dustin Olsen (22:10.827)
You know, you’re right. don’t think anyone does. and I, and I want to say that’s probably the foresight that the Trump administration has is they don’t want to get slapped around anymore or prevent it from possibly happening. and there’s, there’s growing pains and I were definitely feeling some quick and painful growing pain right now with some of his, executive orders going in place.
Daniel O’Connor (22:39.77)
Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (22:40.973)
Long-term, have optimism that it will be best for us. I if you’re just here in the United States, I can’t speak for other countries, but here in the United States, companies that have pledged investment, domestic investment for infrastructure is into the trillions right now, which is crazy. I I think that’s a hopeful signal that companies like Apple, GM, Metta,
Daniel O’Connor (22:56.858)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (23:11.231)
you know, they’re, going to billions of investment. And it, it came so quick that that commitment that it makes me wonder if they were already planning on doing that because they also were seeing the writing on the wall. But it, I don’t know. It’s just interesting, but it’s, it’s, it’s a sign I think of, I think people agree holistically, generally.
Daniel O’Connor (23:24.752)
Hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (23:36.846)
Yeah. Right.
Dustin Olsen (23:40.023)
I want to be careful who I’m saying agrees with us, but that it is probably the right move.
Daniel O’Connor (23:46.935)
It’s just, it’s hard to say, you know, it’s really hard to say, but you know.
The, again, two rare earth bases, China, right? There’s two major centers, one in the inner Mongolia, one in like south, I want to say, eastern, yeah, China. And one of the goals when they say that is to bring these together, make them more efficient and productive. And the other one is that they’re gonna master.
outputs of these rare earths. So they’re going to produce all the magnets and all the, you know, assemblies and parts and forms or components. And so, and then they’ll work on bigger products like automobiles. So you can see that this is all part of the strategy that’s unfolding.
It’s fascinating to watch. I mean, I think we have a very unique advantage because we focus on it so much. Most people don’t, they know something’s going on, but we’re learning a lot.
Dustin Olsen (24:58.925)
We really are. Well, Daniel, Clark’s about running out. Do you have one other highlight you want to talk about from the last week?
Daniel O’Connor (25:08.792)
Okay, I would say, you know, we have this behind the scenes of the rare earth supply chain with the traders, financiers and the coming boom. So last week we spoke about Traxxas and Aerofura and an Australian mine coming together to build a supply chain outside of China. Okay, so there’s going to be a lot of business.
for service providers that do this, financiers, lawyers, probably consultants, We’re building solutions of a certain class, But right now, the rare earth market is projected to grow from 10 to 15 billion today to over 30 billion by 2030. And the West is driving the Western decoupling.
from China is driving a lot of growth and change. And commodity traders and service firms like Traxxas, and there’s a handful of them, but that’s an example, are becoming critical intermediaries in developing alternative rare earth supply networks. So for example, Traxxas recently did the mining deal with Arafura, where they would take their offtake.
They would pay for it, take title to it, And trade, they’re trading, it’s like an investment bank, okay? Also Energy Fuels, which is a US company, actually they have a presence in Utah, but they’re based in Colorado, aimed to deal with Japan to focus on supply chain deals involving basically critical…
Minerals and this ties to a White House Executive order that we talked about last week, so There’s other companies out there like Peak Rare Earths I’m sorry Argus Rare Earths and Argus has a media as well like us and they have a sort of trading and pricing Peak Rare Earths Limited
Daniel O’Connor (27:35.697)
Mercuria Energy Group, they’re inching their way into Rare Earth Logistics and Trading Services. Others are Glencore that has a unit that does this and a handful of others. So in this article, we looked at, know, who are the firms that are going to come in and facilitate these ex-China deals, for example. And so you can think of these firms as like Traxxas again, is they’re like a trading firm where they
they buy and sell copper or steel or what have you, right? And they help up with their client structure deals and they provide some pricing. So they’re kind of a quasi market. we just introduced a handful of those companies out there and we even got some comments. How about that, Dustin?
Dustin Olsen (28:30.615)
Yeah, that’s great.
Daniel O’Connor (28:31.792)
Which is great. Should I read the comment?
Dustin Olsen (28:38.637)
Sure. Yeah, go ahead.
Daniel O’Connor (28:39.81)
Okay, so it’s from Paul Steven at Rainbow. There is one obvious move that the West can make to put a dent into China’s ability to sustain its monopoly. Open a rare earth desk on the London Metals Exchange. That’s what we’ve been talking about. Currently China’s CCP controls the allowed range by imposing future
trading ranges on what are nationalized producers. So it’s completely controlled by the Communist Party of China. Okay. So you think about that. There’s no market. It’s controlled by a communist country.
But we’re opening up markets here and without going into too much details, Rare Earth Exchange is we’re building functionality for essentially people that want to use us as a market, you know, a way to facilitate information exchange, a way to access data very quickly to help them with decision making. So that’s exciting.
Dustin Olsen (29:50.413)
Yeah, that is exciting. it’s a big undertaking and we hope it takes off.
Daniel O’Connor (29:55.182)
Yes.
Daniel O’Connor (29:59.608)
Yes, my fingers are crossed.
Dustin Olsen (30:02.573)
And my toes.
Daniel O’Connor (30:04.72)
It’s for Dustin it’s Friday. We’ve had a long week, you know, but we you know what you got to give ourselves some credit We got up we came over we logged in and we’re doing it
Dustin Olsen (30:06.753)
and
Dustin Olsen (30:18.241)
We’re doing it. So all right, Daniel. Well, that’s all the time we’ve got for this week. Great insights. think things are heating up in interesting ways, to say the least. And so we’ll be back next week to keep talking about it. awesome.
Daniel O’Connor (30:38.351)
Look forward.
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