[e40]

And some number of years ago, the government restarted a rare earth ore processing plant (somewhere in the west, like CO... I forget). Of course, after a year or two, the will to maintain it (because it was operating at a loss) evaporated and it went under.

Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China because of an extortion incident between the two... they process the ore in far off places (Australia and other places), before importing the final products.

The issue is that the US is (and has been for some time) mired in short-term thinking. The short term being how to win the next election, not how to solve problems. Of course, now, the problems being solved aren't really ones that people want, unless you are rich already.

[Tangurena2]

Part of the trouble with refining "rare earths" [1] is that the undesired residue (commonly called "slag") is radioactive and toxic. Smokestack emissions are also toxic enough that countries with pollution controls don't want them inside their borders. In the US, that means that every rare earth refinery becomes a SuperFund site [2].

China doesn't want to keep refining the metals - they want to move up the value chain by making things out of these metals. Instead of selling the refined neodymium & dysprosium for $50, they want to sell the electric motors that sell for $1,000.

Notes:

1 - They aren't rare at all, they're the bottom 2 strips/rows of the periodic table (of how it is most commonly displayed). Chemically, they're rather similar so the separation process is more complicated and annoying than, say, refining iron ore. Many people like to specifically exclude the actinides (the bottom row which includes uranium & plutonium) from the category "rare earth" because scary! radioactive! nuke! stuff! tends to divert discussion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element

2 - A major problem with SuperFund sites is that every person/corporation who owned that land at any time is responsible for cleaning up the toxic waste. Just like asbestos waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund

[e40]

Exactly! The problem with the way countries move up is to move the dirty industries to the up-and-coming countries. We need to properly pay for clean industry, but that conversation really never gets very far.

[CGMthrowaway]

The US mine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine

It went bankrupt in 2015, but came out of it and is still operating today. $MP, up 300% YTD

The Japan incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Senkaku_boat_collision_in...

tldr: Japan arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain in disputed territory. China responded by restricting exports of rare earth elements to Japan. Japan responded by forming a new partnership with Lynas Rare Earths which mines in Australia and processes in Malaysia. $LYS, up 150% YTD

[alephnerd]

> Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China

Nope. They are still dependent on transshipment via Thailand or processing in 3rd countries like India or Vietnam.

Heck, Toyota's India JV has been halted [0] from exporting processed rare earths to Japan from India right now because China has blockaded Indian access [1] to rare earths which China promised to remove recently but still hasn't [2], which lead to India blocking it's export of REEs.

And people wonder why countries have continued to engage with the US despite Trump.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-moves-conserve-its...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig...

[2] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250916VL202/tata-group-rar...

[MichaelZuo]

Toyota intentionally tried to use India as a shield and drag it into intrigues with China over rare earths?

That’s pretty big news if true.

[alephnerd]

India wasn't dragged into intrigue by Japan. India was blockaded by China BECAUSE Japan (and South Korea) are working on building an ExChina supply chain for REE processing within India, and becuase Taiwan has begun moving it's dual use ESM chain to India [0][1]. A lot of India-Taiwan military collaboration is occuring at IIT Ropar [2], which has become a de facto hub for Indian defense tech [3] (most of their "AI" research is tracking and C-UAS applications). Essentially, India is viewed by China as a potential competitor that needs to be nipped in the bud [5].

The Japanese government, Toyota, and the Indian government began a REE joint venture back in 2009 called Toyotsu Rare Earths India Ltd [4] that dramatically expanded after China started a trade war with Japan over the Senkaku Diaoyu islands in 2012.

> That’s pretty big news if true

It has been in Japan and India for months now. This is why the Indian government began a massive processing campaign over the past 1-2 years with Japanese and Korean involvement, along with a push for EESM mass production.

[0] - https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4196

[1] - https://cuashub.com/en/content/a-geopolitical-game-of-drones...

[2] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/indo-taiwan/

[3] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/coe-sards

[4] - https://trei.co.in/

[5] - https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cfer-202...

[MichaelZuo]

If China was fine with rare earths ultimately making its way to Japan, why would Toyota HQ need to use an Indian JV as a proxy?

There has to be some reason to use such a roundabout method and get the Indian board members signatures on the record on whatever they sent to Beijing to get it approved in the first place.

[alephnerd]

> Toyota HQ need to use an Indian JV as a proxy

Japan began moving extraction and processing to India. Japan conducts transshipment via Thailand and Vietnam (though Vietnam is now graduating into processing as well).

TREI is completely ExChina.

> China was fine with rare earths ultimately making its way to Japan

The worry has been if China and Japan are ever in a diplomatic tussle again like in 2010-12, then the entire flow of REEs from China could be shut down, but the Chinese government still wants to let some amount of flow to happen in order to ensure that the incentive to build an entirely ExChina supply chain does not take hold.

[MichaelZuo]

So it clearly seems like dragging them into intrigues they otherwise could have simply avoided?

(By genuinely using the materials in India which Indian JVs typically do)

[h2zizzle]

If the US were to engage in long-term thinking, we might come to dangerous conclusions like, "Having a permanent racial underclass of perpetually-exploited and dissatisfied residents is a bad thing, and maybe we should train/pay the ones that are already here, inculcating them the righteousness of the American project, rather than constantly importing workers because their lack of direct experience with our country's institutions as they currently exist makes them easier marks." It would devastate the poverty-retail-financial-service complex.

The funniest part is our current admin's inadvertent exposure of this situation. Tinfoil hats on, but I hear tell of difficulties in the subprime auto-lending space because so many of immigrants who were targeted for those loans either stopped making payments because they're too afraid to go to work, or else self-deported with their cars. Lender bankruptcies are in-process, which is probably not good for all of the derivatives that are about to go to zero in sympathy. So much for consumer strength, and completely avoidable if not for our insistence on squeezing our least for every last cent.

[lazyeye]

I thought we were talking about rare earths?

[h2zizzle]

>The issue is that the US is (and has been for some time) mired in short-term thinking. The short term being how to win the next election, not how to solve problems. Of course, now, the problems being solved aren't really ones that people want, unless you are rich already.

If you're going to get smart, at least pay attention.

[lazyeye]

(Shrugs)...people who make every. single. thing. about Trump are just not interesting.

[h2zizzle]

If you think that that comment is about Trump, rather than simply mentioning him as part of a larger point about American society, you might cure your boredom by focusing on enhancing your reading comprehension.