At a time when U.S. military weapons urgently need restocking, China decisively announced a rise in rare earth prices—now the White House is stunned!
According to Bloomberg, Chinese rare earth companies saw their stock prices surge following a quarterly price hike. On the evening of April 10, two major rare earth giants—Baotou Steel & Rare Earth Co., Ltd. and Northern Rare Earth Group—both issued announcements declaring an increase in the transaction price for rare earth concentrate for the second quarter of 2026.
As per the announcement, Baotou Steel plans to adjust the Q2 transaction price of rare earth concentrate to 38,804 yuan per ton (excl. tax), with Northern Rare Earth implementing the same standard. This price adjustment represents a staggering 44.61% increase compared to the previous period. Upon the news release, Baotou Steel's shares rose as much as 8.5%, while Northern Rare Earth climbed 3.1%.
The timing of this price hike could not be more delicate. Previously, Bloomberg cited informed sources reporting that the U.S. military has heavily depleted its weapon stocks due to ongoing conflicts with Iran. Japan’s order for approximately 400 "Tomahawk" cruise missiles from the United States now faces delayed delivery. Just as the U.S. military urgently needs to replenish ammunition supplies, rare earth prices coincidentally surged—undoubtedly just a coincidence.
Before launching military action against Iran, the U.S. military had roughly 4,000 units of various Tomahawk cruise missile models in inventory. Raytheon Company produced only about 100 new-generation Tomahawks throughout 2025, while upgrading around 240 older models to the latest standards.
Informed sources estimate that the number of missiles consumed by the U.S. during this conflict already equals more than two years’ worth of Raytheon’s production output. Furthermore, reports indicate that within the first three days of military operations alone, the U.S. launched over 400 sea-based Tomahawk missiles—a quantity that exceeds the Pentagon’s annual procurement volume of 90 to 100 missiles.
The guidance systems, servo motors, radars, and electronic warfare systems in these missiles all rely heavily on rare earth permanent magnet materials. A single Patriot missile contains approximately 4 kilograms of samarium-cobalt and neodymium-iron-boron magnets, used to focus electron beams and significantly enhance guidance precision. Producing one F-35 fighter jet requires 0.4 tons of rare earth elements, which are essential for high-temperature alloys in engines, servo motors for precision-guided missiles, phased-array radars, and electronic countermeasure systems.
In other words, without rare earths, the U.S. military’s high-tech weapons would be nothing but scrap metal.
What’s most amusing, in my view, is that the White House realizes it has almost no room to respond. Its three potential options have all been blocked. Sourcing alternatives has largely failed—MP Materials itself admitted this. Establishing a strategic reserve is too slow to address immediate needs. As for negotiations, although U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke vaguely, it’s clear that China has remained firm, merely stating they would “consider it” without any real commitment.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1862332897453056/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.