Input Stories

The latest hot investment opportunity in the U.S.: rare-earth companies (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

What’s going on: “Since China began restricting exports of rare earths in April—causing auto factories to halt production and rare-earth prices to shoot up—a wave of private and government funding has flowed into rare-earth companies.”

The backdrop: President Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping tomorrow, with rare-earth exports expected to be a priority topic of conversation.

• “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that he expected Beijing would agree, as part of a trade deal, to defer certain planned export restrictions on rare earths.”

Who’s doing it: Investment firm Orion Resource Partners, which specializes in metal, recently announced a $1.8 billion investment consortium, which includes U.S. federal funds, “to secure critical minerals for the U.S. and its allies.”

• This month, President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a deal to fund critical minerals and rare-earths undertakings.
• The Export-Import Bank of the United States also announced potential funding of $2.2 billion for seven Australian mineral projects, and the administration announced that the Department of Defense would invest in an advanced gallium refinery in Western Australia.
• On Monday, investment bank JPMorgan Chase announced its first investment in a planned series of investments in companies critical to national security: $75 million in Idaho-based mining firm Perpetua Resources, which will produce antimony.

What it means: “The funding boom suggests China’s shock tactics have catalyzed a revival of the Western rare-earth industry, much as U.S. efforts to restrict advanced semiconductor exports to China have turbocharged Chinese efforts to catch up with the U.S. in chips.”

Magnets: Though American leaders said in June that China had agreed to relax restrictions on exports of magnets, “some American companies say it has since gotten harder to acquire magnets again.”