In 2003, a factory in Anderson, Indiana, shipped its last rare earth magnet. The company was called Magnequench. General Motors built it. The Pentagon used its magnets in guided missiles and fighter jets.

Then it went to China. A group with ties to Beijing bought Magnequench in 1995 and waited out a federal deal to keep jobs in the U.S. When the clock ran out, they moved everything — machines, patents, know-how — overseas. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. America lost its only major rare earth magnet factory.

Nobody in Washington made much noise. Rare earths were cheap. China was a partner. The word "decoupling" didn't exist yet.

Last week, the U.S. Ambassador to China broke that silence for good. David Perdue posted on X that China holds a "single-source dominant position" in rare earths and is weaponizing it "against the world." He wrote that he told Beijing directly: "This is unacceptable."

In a second post, Perdue tracked how China's grip has tightened in three steps. In April 2025, Beijing put export licenses on rare earth elements and magnets. Last October, they spread those rules to the whole world. And now, Perdue said, they've made it a crime to help anyone build supply chains outside of China. The penalties include arrest, criminal prosecution, seized assets, and bans on leaving the country.

On Fox News Sunday, he used a word that carries weight in U.S.-China relations. "We are not going to live in a world where we have to go to China and kowtow to do business," he said. "Kowtow" — an old Chinese term for bowing to the emperor — is not a word diplomats choose by accident.

Perdue also named the cost of the last two decades. "Twenty years ago, the United States had single-source dominant positions in rare earth magnets, commercial shipbuilding, and pharmaceuticals," he said. All three went to China.

The calendar makes this urgent. The Busan trade truce runs until January 10. The Pentagon's ban on Chinese-sourced magnets kicks in January 1. A Council on Foreign Relations report published this month found that major defense contractors already can't get magnets fast enough to deliver platforms on time. Three months from now, it gets harder.

Twenty-three years after Magnequench left Anderson, the town still hasn't replaced those jobs. America still hasn't replaced that factory. The difference now is that someone in Beijing — with an American flag on his desk — is saying so on camera.

Legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller once said:

“You don't get rich by diversifying into 50 mediocre assets. You get rich by finding two or three asymmetric home runs.”

Jeff Brown just found this NEW asymmetric home run he calls “Elon Musk’s One Stock Retirement Plan.” (Click here for details.)

The Department of Energy picked 17 projects across 12 national labs last week and gave them $29.5 million. The program, called Mine of the Future, funds everything from robots that scan for ore underground to AI that sorts minerals on the spot. Argonne National Lab got funding to pull rare earths from mine tailings — waste rock that's already been dug up and piled in heaps. Idaho National Lab is testing electric fracturing to extract minerals without drilling new holes. Assistant Secretary Audrey Robertson called it "unleashing the full innovative power of our National Laboratories."

Sunrise Energy Metals, backed by billionaire Robert Friedland, plans to leave Australia, redomicile in Delaware, and list on Nasdaq. The reason is simple: a conditional $400 million commitment from the Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital. The money is for Syerston, a scandium deposit in New South Wales with nearly 46 million tonnes of resource — the world's largest primary scandium deposit. Scandium makes aluminum alloys stronger and lighter for aerospace and defense. Sunrise shares have climbed from A$1.14 to A$15.93 over the past year.

The Council on Foreign Relations published a report this month called "Dismantling China's Supply-Chain Weapon." Author Joris Teer maps the exact chokepoints Beijing controls — refining, alloy making, magnet pressing — and finds the West has no backup plan at scale. Bloomberg reported in July that major U.S. defense contractors couldn't deliver platforms on time because they couldn't source enough magnets. Some defense companies are now asking to delay the Pentagon's January 1 DFARS ban because they have no alternative supply. Teer calls for a joint U.S.-EU strategy to build parallel capacity before the window shuts.

Take a look at this…

It's a radical "light-speed" device that's turning AI as we know it into "Accelerated AI", making it 100 times faster and 100 times more energy efficient.

In fact, Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder and CEO, says this device is shattering the limitations of AI and without it, AI can't scale.

If you want to discover what this technology is, why Nvidia is betting billions on it…

And the one stock we believe could be the biggest winner when "Accelerated AI" goes mainstream…

Click here to see all the details.

Canadian trade officials, meeting in Milwaukee this week, said India's growing auto and EV sectors need a secure mineral supply outside of China. The two countries signed a critical minerals MoU in 2024. New talks focus on rare earth processing partnerships and downstream investment in both countries.

— ANI

Critical Metals (CRML), which holds the Tanbreez rare earth project in Greenland, topped the list. The stock has climbed since the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland security pact signed in September. Two other producers rounded out the top three.

— Simply Wall St

U.S. officials said they want more mineral processing built inside Brazil, not just raw exports. Brasília's new national minerals policy requires miners to add value in-country before shipping. American funding and technical support may follow.

— MINING.COM

China's commodity exchanges have been closed since October 1 for National Day. When markets reopen October 8, traders get the first fresh pricing for PrNd oxide, dysprosium, and terbium in over a week. Before the break, PrNd ticked up while heavy rare earths held flat.

— SMM