In this episode of the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast, hosts Dustin Olsen and Daniel O’Connor discuss the latest developments in the rare earth elements industry, focusing on President Trump’s recent executive order aimed at boosting domestic mineral production. They explore the challenges faced by the U.S. in competing with China’s dominance in the rare earth market, the emergence of ex-China supply chains, and international collaborations aimed at reducing dependence on Chinese resources. The conversation highlights the growing interest in rare earths and the need for a comprehensive industrial policy to ensure long-term competitiveness.
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Dustin Olsen (00:01.538)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast where we’ve got me Dustin and we’ve got Daniel. Today we’re talking about some of the latest current events that are going on in the rare earth elements industry. And we got some kind of some crazy stuff going on. Why you say Daniel?
Daniel O’Connor (00:21.467)
Yeah, I would say so, Dustin. It’s getting pretty wild out there.
Dustin Olsen (00:27.21)
Wild Wild West, would you say?
Daniel O’Connor (00:28.707)
is Wild Wild West. How about we start the Wild Wild West, ex-China. There are ex-China markets happening. Lots of news, but I think first and foremost, and it’s not even published yet on the Rare Earth Exchanges website, but President Trump has issued an executive order on critical minerals. It’s declaring an immediate action on mineral production.
The Trump and the White House are acknowledging that rare earth, what rare earth exchanges, that is us, have been saying for quite a while, and that is since our founding, that there’s a national emergency, that the United States has a crippling dependence on foreign controlled rare earth elements and critical minerals. And of course, 90 % of that is China. So this recent executive order is framed as a national security item.
and economic crisis, national security economic crisis. And this order aims to slash permitting timelines, open federal lands for mining and inject capital into domestic mineral projects. Okay. So all that’s good. Okay. There are some issues. Okay. I’ll go a little bit more. They’re trying to mobilize all the different overlapping agencies that are involved with mining and
and critical minerals, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, International Development Finance Corporation, and others. And they’re leveraging the Defense Production Act to bypass bureaucratic hurdles where and when they can. And we heard chatter that they would do this. Now, this order, Dustin, it’s a lot in the right direction, but it still falls woefully short to deal with China.
Okay. It really focuses on upstream mining. know, that is whether it’s Greenland or somewhere in the United States, you know, get that mine up, get that mining, you know, get the permits and get that thing up instead of 15 years, get it up in five years or whatever. Okay. It doesn’t really address the real crux of the problem, which are midstream, you know, the separation, the refining.
Dustin Olsen (02:24.558)
huh.
Daniel O’Connor (02:51.991)
know, processing, refining, and the manufacturing, you know, the components, parts, and assemblies, magnets, what have you, that are part of this holistic process. And the government, they’re not looking at this as a holistic process, Dustin. They’re looking at it as an analogy somebody told me. It’s like sort of bodybuilding. You know, if you’re a bodybuilder and all you do is bicep curls, or tricep curls, right?
But you don’t do your legs, you don’t do your back, you don’t do your chest. You’re gonna look kinda funny, right Dustin?
Dustin Olsen (03:26.816)
Well, kind of funny might be a bit modest, but yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (03:31.791)
Yeah, you’re going to be one those guys with, you know, so the problem, you know, the US is not still is not looking holistically via industrial policy. We’ve been saying since we’ve been founded, you need a critical minerals are. You need you need industrial policy to build refineries. We need to bring that expertise back.
Dustin Olsen (03:51.938)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (04:00.261)
that midstream processing plants, magnet production facilities to reduce the risk from China. So while the order, you know, prioritizes regulatory streamlining, it does not outline the potential response that can happen from China. Remember, if China shuts us off tomorrow, we don’t have anything.
Dustin Olsen (04:24.014)
Yeah, we’re up a creek without a paddle.
Daniel O’Connor (04:26.695)
Exactly. Beijing has weaponized its control over earth exports. The US push now is going to put them on a trigger’s notice. There could be further market manipulation, price dumping, or export restrictions, as we talked about. The financing, financial provisions of this effort are vague. Again, the order does call for public-private partnerships.
Dustin Olsen (04:45.998)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (04:57.147)
but it lacks any explicit funding commitments or incentives to ensure long-term competitiveness against China’s state-substitized rare earth industry. And again, Dustin, in China, they’ve got a handful of companies that are the result of roll-ups of multiple companies. They’re all owned by the state, at least partially, and they’re aligned with
their mission over there, which is to leverage this refinery and production monopoly, quasi monopoly, to bolster their economy and position, which is they’re doing. you know, on the one hand, this is a really good news. It’s a step in the right direction to, the credit of president Trump.
Dustin Olsen (05:49.134)
Yeah, I agree. think it’s, it is a good step, but I think even in our, our last episode, we were talking about, I mean, mining is good. And with, without government funding, which is, I think we’re trying to maybe have the foresight and doing well in this is, is backing these mines because it’s expensive, right? I don’t think you can take it that capitalistic approach to.
Create a mine and and have it be profitable, right? Like if nobody can make money, like there’s just it’ll go nowhere. And so I think as you pointed out, the lack of funding in the messaging is I would say is a red flag, you know, and maybe that probably won’t put China on on trigger watch because it’s like, well, like.
Daniel O’Connor (06:21.831)
Yeah, yeah.
Dustin Olsen (06:47.694)
Nice try guys like nice try, but you haven’t even thought the whole thing through
Daniel O’Connor (06:52.551)
I mean, that’s a good point. just, we don’t know. you we don’t, not talking to the Trump administration, so we don’t know. but we can only know what we can, what we can decipher from what they’re stating. So, you know, it doesn’t seem to be enough. I don’t understand. I don’t know if they understand the severity of this problem.
Dustin Olsen (07:01.164)
Not yet, not yet.
Daniel O’Connor (07:20.891)
But I think they’re starting to understand it.
Dustin Olsen (07:24.376)
Yeah, well, yeah, let’s give them credit. They are starting to understand. I think you can’t, in one regard, I would say you can’t process anything. You can’t refine anything if you don’t have it.
Daniel O’Connor (07:29.169)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (07:40.839)
True enough. True enough.
Dustin Olsen (07:42.222)
Right. And so, so I would say, yeah, step one, great. Let’s, let’s acquire the material to even to worry about processing and refining. Um, cause until then, why, why spinner wheels, right? So give them credit, you know, maybe that’s, that’s coming, you know, we don’t know, but I, yeah, great first step, you know, kudos to the Trump administration.
Daniel O’Connor (07:57.051)
Yes.
Daniel O’Connor (08:04.167)
No, I agree with you. It’s that’s what we said. It’s a good first step. And again, we just need to be very agile or adaptive. We need to be observant and we need to be strategic in how we if you’re going to really enter this market and really take on a state sponsored monopoly that the whole world is dependent on.
Dustin Olsen (08:34.094)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
What’s the phrase? You put your money where your mouth is.
Daniel O’Connor (08:42.075)
Yeah. Well, look, I can tell you this, Dustin, we put our money where our mouth is. We started rare earth exchanges and I think it was a smart move. think it’s extremely timely topic. know, so anyway, so that’s that. I mean, there’s some other important news that wasn’t necessarily on our agenda, if I may talk.
Dustin Olsen (08:44.174)
You
Dustin Olsen (08:48.526)
you
Dustin Olsen (08:56.846)
Yes.
Daniel O’Connor (09:10.243)
about a couple other things, if that’s okay. So very important news is Traxxas and Aerofura put together a deal which is one of two deals this week to create a what we call ex-China supply chain for rare earths. So it’s a big deal. There’s things happening, okay.
Dustin Olsen (09:35.915)
So, Daniel, for the benefit of those who aren’t in this industry, what is ex-China? Like an ex-wife? Like what is ex-China?
Daniel O’Connor (09:44.199)
Yeah, ex China means outside. It means outside of China. And so all the whole rare earth element market is in China. The Chinese control it. They control the product. They control the pricing. They control the distribution, everything. So 90%.
This week we’ve had a couple deals that are evidencing the West, Western players starting to set up supply chains ex-China or outside of China. One of them is the Australian mine in development called Aerofura. And that’s a big project that’s not done yet. And this company Traxxas. Traxxas
is a prominent global commodities trading firm. It’s actually the result of a merger of other companies that came together around 2003. It’s based in Luxembourg, 20 offices around the world. based on this deal with Arafura, know, it’s evidence of activity outside of China. So more specifics, Arafura
the mining company signed a binding five-year offtake agreement with Traxxas for 100 to 300 tons of NDPR oxide annually from what is called the Nolens project. The Nolens mine is where they’re mining the rare earths. Now, five-year offtake means the product that they’re producing from the mine, they’re getting guaranteed purchase from Traxxas.
So the deal represents a significant move given it’s meant to reduce rare earth supply chain dependence on China. Again, targeting critical markets like electric vehicles and renewable energy. The Aerofuran now has secured 66 % of its planned 4,400 TPA of…
Daniel O’Connor (12:06.887)
NDPR production capacity and this positions Arafura as a major non-Chinese NDPR supplier. think about it. This is outside of China. This is a main, you know, it’s not done yet this mine, but it’s on its way. They’re publicly traded Arafura Rare Earths Limited Australian Stock Exchange, a symbol ARU. And again, they have these binding agreements. So
You know, and the company, it’s based on X China pricing. So the NDPR pricing will be pegged to what they call the X works China price, ensuring competitive but independent market structure. So it’s not based on the Chinese pricing. It’s like the first step towards a marketplace. Okay.
Dustin Olsen (12:59.542)
huh.
Daniel O’Connor (12:59.975)
And that’s a big, big deal. It seems like technical and maybe not that big of a deal. It’s actually a very big deal. And there’s another deal that happened this week. that was Posco cut a deal with, I have to get the name, it’s an American company called
Bear with me one second. POSCO and US-based Energy Fuels Inc. So Energy Fuels, the name of the company, they’re a uranium miner. And POSCO, POSCO is a Korean steel conglomerate aimed to establish an independent rare earth magnet supply chain outside of China. So another ex-China market supply chain.
The partnership is contemplated to provide rare earth element magnets for United States, Europe, South Korea and Japanese automakers. Okay, so both electric vehicle and regular cars that may have magnets. So, you know, there’s a number of key risks in this deal and it’s not as big as the Aerofura and
tracks the steel, but it’s an important indicator that what we establish rare earth exchanges to monitor is happening. So this latest deal with Energy Fuels, company which is again American company and
Dustin Olsen (14:42.382)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (14:51.163)
The POSCO is based on a memorandum of understanding. it’s MOU, so it’s not a full contract yet. So we have to monitor this one, but it’s notable.
Dustin Olsen (15:04.183)
Yeah, that’s very encouraging. just considering the conversations we’ve had even on this podcast of how asleep at the will, feels like everyone has been, you know, like it’s really encouraging to see businesses and countries starting to make deals outside of China. Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (15:31.003)
Yeah, it’s a big deal. It’s happening and, you know, so I think that, you know, like we set up rare earth exchanges to actually chronicle this unfolding situation and it’s literally happened. Good timing, Dustin.
Dustin Olsen (15:51.342)
It’s honestly wild, you know?
Daniel O’Connor (15:55.247)
Yeah, yeah, we’re right in the middle of it.
Dustin Olsen (15:59.186)
Yeah, we unsuspectingly maybe stumbled into it. know, it just, the automotive industry is, it was kind of my introduction to all of this. But even then, it didn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of talk around it. You know, like nobody’s talking about the implications of what’s going on, you know? So.
Daniel O’Connor (16:25.063)
Yeah, yeah. You know, and you wonder why we’ve, you know, we are constantly like asking ourselves, why aren’t people taking this more seriously, you know? So a couple other pieces of news that we can cover. Yesterday, we covered Japan investing 109 million into a French rare earth refining, refinery to cut China dependence. Again, here’s another example. Look what’s happening.
all these deals. It’s just one after the other. So Japan and France collaborate on a 2 million euro, so it’s a little bit more than 200 million dollar investment in Carrester’s Rare Earth Refining and Recycling Project, launching in 2026. The initiative aims to diversify rare earth supply chains away from China’s global dominance.
Dustin Olsen (16:54.348)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (17:19.911)
The project will produce 590 tons of dysprosium and terbium annually. And this secures approximately about 20 % of Japan’s rare earth demand. So look at this. mean, and the company is called Karrester. Karrester is a French company, okay? And…
It’s a rare earth company that I believe is in Paris. It was in 2019, Frederick Karamkott alongside a team of passionate internationally renowned researchers and professional founded Carrester. So it’s only founded in 2019 as a true hub of European expertise in the rare earth field. So they have 35 employees.
100 % of sales revenue internationally derived, 36 % of revenue is invested in R &D. Pretty impressive company, not that old, say. So yet another example of, again, companies in Europe or the US and Japan here agreeing to do business.
to create a parallel or X China market. Amazing, isn’t it?
Dustin Olsen (18:51.778)
Yeah, it’s just, it is mind blowing honestly, that it’s what we’ve talked about three major deals, you know, of sorts going on in just the last week. Like, is it coincidental? it’s, they all get together and like,
Daniel O’Connor (19:09.093)
Yeah, just the last week. I it’s crazy.
Dustin Olsen (19:18.732)
You’re gonna make a deal. You’re gonna make a deal. You’re gonna make a deal. It’s just crazy. Like, what’s going on?
Daniel O’Connor (19:25.127)
it
It’s just what the markets, the West wants some independence from China. I think that we’re reporting on these things. We’re getting a lot of traffic, we, Dustin? It’s exploding.
Dustin Olsen (19:45.132)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re picking up speed, which is just another indication of this topic is as niches that might sound as boring as it could probably be. people are interested and concerned, like they’re, they’re coming to, to learn more and, and probably honestly see what the options are.
Daniel O’Connor (20:12.187)
Yeah, absolutely. No, there’s going to be huge business opportunities. There’s going to be for the midstream to downstream. That’s going to be a whole different thing. That’s going to explode. We’re predicting 2026 experts. talked to say 2026 is when it really explodes because that’s when you know, especially if China now China, you know, gets more aggressive and blocking access to these products. Then, you know, you’ll see
Dustin Olsen (20:39.064)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (20:41.457)
President Trump invest even more. You’ll start to see the industrial policy that we’re talking about, where, see, the US is not really, its economy isn’t really run like that. We don’t have industrial policy. The government, although the government’s intimately involved in lots of sectors in many ways, we kind of become a crony capitalistic country in many ways.
We still don’t have industrial policy, which you think of more of a socialistic or
hybrid economy, okay? But to counter what China’s done, you really have no choice. I you can wait it out. More than likely, market forces over 20, 30 years will prevail. But as one famous economist said, in the long run, we’re all dead. you know, if we want more resilience sooner,
Dustin Olsen (21:37.55)
Eh.
Daniel O’Connor (21:48.667)
Let’s say within five years, probably need industrial policy. But I think what President Trump has done today is a big step in that direction.
Dustin Olsen (22:00.856)
I think it is a really big step. It’s very encouraging and it’ll be even that more interesting to see what the response is for one. And if there is more to follow up with that, like we already said, like funding, is the government gonna fund it beyond tax credits or deductions, right?
Daniel O’Connor (22:20.711)
yeah.
Dustin Olsen (22:31.214)
Like we need, we need much more than that to incentivize the private sector to, get involved. And like, I think it’ll be really interesting to see. And, you know, we’re three months into 2025, which means 2026 is that much closer. And if it’s really going to explode, like I, wow, I’m, very curious to see what’s what, how the stage will be set for this.
Daniel O’Connor (22:31.238)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (22:55.079)
Well, does 100%. And I just want to share that, you know, the website, the work you’ve done is great. It’s really growing. The traffic is growing. We have comments now. We’re working on a hub for like investors and others that want to talk about some of these companies, their stock, their finances, their legal situation, what have you. We’re building a compelling platform.
I just want let people know that rare earth exchanges is coming up.
Dustin Olsen (23:30.702)
Yeah, we are coming up. Yeah, lots, lots to pay attention to for sure. think, you know, talking about business and opportunity and things like that, you know, one of the things that we noticed with the website outside of the news is, you know, we put out an article on areas to invest in to, pay attention to not, not necessarily recommending you should go invest, but you know,
Daniel O’Connor (23:38.151)
you
Dustin Olsen (24:00.876)
These are some companies to pay attention to. And we saw major traffic to this article, which just indicates, I think, general public and interest looking into what’s going on. So it’s not just what the Trump administration is doing as an indicator. We’ve also got our own analytics indicating where the interest is and what people are looking at. So, yeah.
Come to the website, you’re bound to learn something.
Daniel O’Connor (24:31.207)
Yeah, no, if you want to learn about this topic, and again, we’re not going 10 feet deep with it. We only go so deep with the material, and there’s plenty of things. We’re learning something new every day. I talk to experts out there, and they tell me that every day they’ve been doing this for 20, 30 years, they’re still learning. you know, we cover a lot of ground.
We are independent, very important, right Dustin? We’re independent. not, we try to be as objective as possible.
Dustin Olsen (25:06.518)
Yes, in other words, we’re not state-owned.
Daniel O’Connor (25:09.945)
No, we’re not state of, we’re not wed to any company or any ideology. We’re obviously Americans and we have a bias towards our own country, which is understandable, but we’re definitely trying to, the genesis for this is that someone
Dustin Olsen (25:26.414)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (25:36.229)
that we consult with, he’s a real expert in this area and very great guy. And he said that, you know, a large percentage of the news that you read out there about this topic is off. And so we’re trying to democratize this industry’s information, add more services, right? So we can become more valuable. That’s kind of cool too.
Dustin Olsen (26:06.094)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel O’Connor (26:06.199)
and make a difference in a very important industry, an industry that has national security implications.
Dustin Olsen (26:16.396)
Yeah, lots of implications. You just said earlier ago, like if China were to cut us off today,
Sayonara, You know.
Daniel O’Connor (26:27.473)
Yeah. Well, we would be, you would, you would have within 90 days, probably you would have shortages of a lot of products, right? That would hit military, you know, aerospace, defense, high tech, electric vehicles, electronics, industrial electronics. mean, you name it. it’s what we’re learning. These little minerals, they’re like essential.
Dustin Olsen (26:36.888)
everything.
Dustin Olsen (26:48.8)
yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (26:56.935)
ingredients. You may not need that much. A big submarine, you know, only needs maybe $10,000 worth, you know, a $50 million dollar submarine might need $10,000 worth of rare earths, but you can’t, you can’t build it without it.
Dustin Olsen (27:09.774)
Dustin Olsen (27:17.024)
Yeah, yeah, it’s the the corners to the keystone, right? You can’t have that archway without the keystone,
Daniel O’Connor (27:20.763)
Yes.
No, exactly. Now there are, you know, we’re the marketplace as we’ve discussed a lot. We put original content out based on studies. We go find studies, very technical. We read them, summarize them, you know, try to be as objective as possible. Look at the limitations of the study. Look at the reality of the market. But like take non rare earth magnets. There’s a company called Neuron Magnetics. We’ve spoken with them. Good people.
So University of Minnesota spin-off. They’re building a non-rare earth magnet that over time probably can be used in a lot of places. But it’s gonna take time, right? Recycling, there’s people working on Phoenix tailings, right? They’re working on rare earth recycling technology. University of Utah has a project, they’re looking at coal tailings. There’s all kinds of projects, but they’re still in early stages. So when you look at what you really need,
from an industrial scalability point of view, you go back to dependence on China. Mountain Pass Mine, NP materials, they’re the biggest rare earth mine in North America, or United States at least. And they’re cut a deal with General Motors to provide magnets. So there’s a lot happening. We’ll try to objectively, know, chronicle all of this.
And we want to invite investors. We want to start tracking companies, tracking the conditions, try to add value to different demographics groups interested in this stuff.
Dustin Olsen (29:10.062)
Absolutely. Yes. We’re getting there. And with all the hot goss out there, coming to Rare Earth Exchanges, we’ll have more news and we’ll be back next week for sure to talk about anything else that is new and upcoming. Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (29:11.515)
So.
Daniel O’Connor (29:24.037)
Yes.
Well, Dustin, let’s remind everybody, sorry to interrupt you, but let’s remind everybody that we’re going to start having guests. So pretty soon we’re going to start inviting guests to do interviews, talk about companies, talk about conditions, talk about projects, et cetera. And also I want to remind everybody Rare Earth Exchanges projects. We now have somebody working for us that’s going through all of these mines around the world and updating the information.
Dustin Olsen (29:34.199)
Yeah.
Daniel O’Connor (29:56.929)
and at some point in the next week’s month at the most. pretty soon we’ll have very granular updated information on just about every rare earth mine around the world.
Dustin Olsen (30:11.054)
Yeah, exciting. Yes, projects are coming along and yeah, keep coming. We’re exploring as fast as this is evolving, I feel like. Things are coming along.
Daniel O’Connor (30:11.761)
So.
Daniel O’Connor (30:28.551)
100%. Thanks to your great work. Together we’re growing now. We have others, but we definitely started something very interesting.
Dustin Olsen (30:42.402)
Yeah, 100%. So with that, we’ll sign off and we’ll be back again next week and catch you guys later.
Daniel O’Connor (30:54.523)
Have a good coming weekend.
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