September 7, 2010. A Chinese fishing boat rammed a Japanese Coast Guard ship near the Senkaku Islands. Japan locked up the captain. Within days, China cut off rare earth shipments to Japan.

The whole thing lasted about two months. Prices spiked. Japan scrambled. And the world got its first real look at what happens when one country holds the keys to a supply everyone needs.

It was a turning point. Rare earths stopped being a niche topic for rock hounds. They became a weapon.

That was sixteen years ago. Japan learned from it. They built stockpiles. Put money into recycling. Signed supply deals with Australia and Vietnam. Pushed for G7 action on key metals. They did everything the textbooks say to do.

It wasn't enough. China has shipped zero dysprosium and terbium to Japan since January of this year. Just 14.1 tonnes of yttrium oxide trickled through between January and May before those shipments fell to zero in June. Scandium exports didn't stop until August. The Financial Times reported this week that Japan could run out of yttrium by the end of this year. Yttrium is a heat-resistant rare earth used in jet engines, cars, and chip making. One Japanese official put the timeline at "months, not years." Japan's imports of yttrium oxide fell 74% in the first half of 2026 compared with two years earlier.

Yttrium doesn't grab headlines the way neodymium or dysprosium do. But it shows up in places that matter — jet engine coatings, fuel cells, surgical lasers. It's a workhorse metal. Until it's gone.

The price tells the story. Yttrium oxide costs about $9 per kilogram inside China. Outside China, the same oxide costs $1,150. That outside price has risen 179-fold in two years. Japan has been drawing down its own stockpiles to keep plants running, but that runway is almost gone.

So Japan asked the United States for help. Tokyo wants Washington to use the weight of its trade truce with Beijing to press China on export controls. A Japanese official told the FT that stockpiles are falling fast and savings efforts can only go so far. A senior U.S. official said last month that China is meeting "only two-thirds" of its Busan truce pledges. That truce expires January 10. Less than 80 days from now.

China's October 2025 export rules went further than anything before. Firms tied to foreign armies were largely denied licenses. The rules don't stop at China's border, either. Even magnets made in other countries need Beijing's sign-off if they contain Chinese rare earths. Japan's stance on Taiwan made it a prime target.

But Europe's chip makers and jet-engine builders use the same metal. Japan is the world's fourth-largest economy. It spent sixteen years getting ready for this. And it still wasn't enough. The question for everyone else isn't whether it happens to them. It's when.

Saudi Arabia figured it out.

They pay their citizens $3,600 a month per family. Just for existing. Funded entirely by oil.

Meanwhile, politicians in America are arguing about Twitter, while you get nothing from the $300 billion we generate from oil and gas every year.

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Put in $100,000 = get $10,000 back.

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This is universal basic income for people who don't want to wait around for the government to figure it out.

P.I.P. is on pace to pay out $53 billion this year — a record. The next distribution drops in days.

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Five senators and two House members from both parties put forward the National Critical Minerals Council Act this month. The bill would put three people in charge: the Interior Secretary, the National Security Adviser, and the NEC director. Their job would be to bring all federal work on key metals under one roof. Right now, more than 15 agencies work on this with no shared plan. The council would track foreign deals in mineral projects worldwide and build a plan to cut reliance on rivals. The U.S. depends entirely on imports for 16 of these minerals.

The Aerospace Industries Association put out a report in September with a blunt finding: the U.S. won't have enough refining and magnet-making capacity for aerospace-grade materials until 2028 or later. The Pentagon's DFARS ban on Chinese-origin magnets across the entire supply chain starts January 1, 2027. AIA also raised a new worry. Project Vault — the government's planned $12 billion metals stockpile — could end up bidding against the same defense firms it was built to help. Waivers will still be needed for years, AIA says, but the July order limits them to firms with approved plans.

Oceana Metals (ASX: OCN) closed its purchase of the Serra Negra rare earths and niobium project in Minas Gerais, Brazil, on October 16. Oceana paid US$2.95 million in cash and 15.5 million shares upfront. The full deal is worth up to $10.3 million. Four drill rigs are already turning. Serra Negra sits on one of the world's largest alkaline carbonatite bodies — a type of rock rich in rare earths and niobium. Brazil's ionic clay deposits and carbonatite bodies have drawn a wave of foreign money this year. Oceana is at least the fourth Australian firm to move into the country's rare earth space, joining Lynas, Meteoric, and Ionic Rare Earths.

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Shenghe Resources will sell 51% stakes in four rare earth refining units to a unit of state-owned China Rare Earth Group. The price tag: 1.66 to 1.81 billion yuan ($248–271 million). The four units sit in Sichuan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, and Shandong. After the deal closes, the two firms plan to pool their output and go after bigger quotas.

— Mining.com / Reuters, Oct 19

Liz Miranda, a top Army Materiel Command official, said at the AUSA conference that the service will "see some impact" when the January deadline hits. The new order requires firms to map their supply chains back to the raw ore. Miranda said she doesn't expect a cliff-edge outcome but added that the Army isn't fully ready.

— Breaking Defense, Oct 15

India is reviewing its 2019 National Mineral Policy to focus on critical minerals, recycling, and deep-sea resources. The Mines Ministry is also scaling up rare earth refining tech as part of a push to build an end-to-end supply chain at home. The 2026 budget announced support for establishing rare earth corridors across coastal states.

— WhalesBook, Oct 20

A new report from the United States Studies Centre says Western governments are pouring money into mines and refining plants but not doing enough on the demand side. Without a protected market for non-Chinese supply, the report argues, new projects can't match Chinese prices and private money won't show up.

— USSC / Edith Cowan University, Sept 30