https://rareearthexchanges.com/news/the ... arth-grip/
Highlights
G7 announces $6.4B critical minerals alliance to challenge China’s monopoly.
China controls 85% of rare earth oxide refining and 90% of magnet production, maintaining its strategic leverage despite Western funding pledges.
Capital commitments don’t equal capacity: bringing new separation facilities online takes years.
Even U.S. facilities still ship concentrate to China for processing, exposing the midstream gap in Western supply chains.
Projects span Canada with partners from Japan, Germany, France, and the U.S., targeting graphite, scandium, and rare earth refining.
Political theater risks funding exploration without securing industrial-scale processing capacity.
The G7’s newly minted “critical minerals alliance,” announced in Toronto, sounds ambitious: C$6.4 billion (US$4.57 billion) pledged to fund mines, refineries, and R&D aimed at breaking China’s rare earth monopoly. But despite the headlines, the reality on the ground—and in the supply chain—is far messier. As one Chinese analyst noted bluntly, rare earths will “remain an important card” in Beijing’s diplomacy. That statement, while defensive, is accurate.
