September 2010.

A Chinese fishing trawler rammed into two Japanese Coast Guard ships near a chain of disputed islands in the East China Sea. The diplomatic fallout was instant. Within weeks, Chinese customs officials stopped processing rare earth shipments to Japan — no announcement, no public order. The paperwork just stopped moving.

Japan had no backup plan. It had built its auto industry, its electronics, and its defense systems on a steady flow of Chinese rare earths. When that flow stopped, prices spiked. Supply froze. The rest of the world woke up to a simple fact: one country controlled the materials that modern industry runs on, and it was willing to use that control.

Sixteen years later, the pattern is back. Not with fishing boats this time — with export licenses. Reuters reported last week that some Chinese suppliers have stopped filling orders for American buyers, even ones with valid licenses. The paperwork exists. The shipments don't.

It's not a formal embargo. It's risk — political risk, legal risk, the kind that no piece of paper fixes. Some U.S. companies have waited six months or more for approvals. Yttrium imports from China are still running at about half their 2024 level.

That's the backdrop for September 24. Xi Jinping flies to Washington in 14 days. Their summit comes 47 days before the most important date on this market's calendar: November 10, when China's pause on its export controls expires. If it lapses, rare earth magnets, alloys, processing equipment, and manufacturing know-how all snap back under restriction. A second set of U.S.-specific controls — gallium, germanium, antimony — follows on November 27.

Jack Lifton laid it out in an InvestorIntel column on Sunday. Extending the pause makes sense for both countries in the short run — American factories keep getting supply, Chinese producers keep their customers and revenue. But if the U.S. doesn't use the breathing room to build refining, separation, and magnet capacity at home, the pause just delays the reckoning. And if prices drop when Chinese supply flows freely, Western projects lose their economic case. That's the trap — cheap imports today, dependence tomorrow.

His line was sharp: "China can restrict access to materials. It cannot assume that customers denied those materials will remain customers indefinitely." Every shipment that doesn't arrive gives the buyer one more reason to look elsewhere. And that's the paradox. The harder China presses, the faster everyone else works to get free.

The September 24 meeting won't settle everything. Washington wants to manage the relationship, not solve it in one afternoon. But rare earths are on the agenda. And the clock is running. Sixty-one days until November 10.

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Ontario's premier said last week that Canada should be ready to stop critical minerals shipments to the United States if tariff disputes keep escalating. Sudbury — the nickel and mining hub that would feel it first — isn't panicking. Industry leaders there see it as politics, not policy. But the timing matters. The U.S. is pouring billions into cutting its dependence on Chinese rare earths, cobalt, and nickel — picking a fight with its closest minerals trading partner opens a front it doesn't need.

Alcoa broke ground last month on a gallium recovery plant at its Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia. The Pentagon is putting in $174 million. Japan's Sojitz is a partner too. The plant will pull gallium out of Alcoa's existing alumina process — no new mine needed — and targets 100 tonnes of gallium metal per year. Gallium is one of the minerals that falls back under China's U.S.-specific export controls November 27 if the suspension isn't renewed.

Malaysia is drawing fresh interest from miners and refiners looking for alternatives outside China before November. Nikkei Asia reported this week that the country may ease its own rare earth export rules to capture the shift. Lynas already runs the world's biggest non-Chinese rare earth refinery in Kuantan, and other companies are exploring refining there too. If Beijing tightens controls again, every tonne of Malaysian output becomes more valuable overnight. The question is whether Kuala Lumpur moves fast enough to matter.

Elon Musk has been saying the same thing for almost a decade:

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AI is already displacing millions of jobs. One report says 40% of all jobs could be automated within the next decade.

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That's how Universal Income will get funded. That's how it will become real.

But here's the problem: Washington moves at a snail's pace. This could take 20 years.

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Asia Society Northern California and Seattle hold a virtual panel today on China's rare earth dominance and U.S. alternatives. Panelists cover permanent magnets, lithium, and supply chain policy — timed two weeks before the Xi-Trump summit.

— Rare Earth Exchanges

Portugal's Mota-Engil signed a 30-year concession covering 1,037 km of railway in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The corridor links mining regions through Angola to the Atlantic coast. Estimated investment: $1.8 billion over the life of the concession.

— Mota-Engil via InvestorNews

Dysprosium rose 3.36% to $239.12/kg on the China domestic benchmark in early September. It was one of just four rare earths to gain this month, while the NdPr magnet complex pulled back together.

— Shanghai Metals Market via rare-earth-mining.com

Scandium metal fell 7.36% to $3,088/kg on the Shanghai benchmark — the largest decline of any tracked rare earth element this month. The market for scandium remains thin and prone to sharp swings.

— Shanghai Metals Market via rare-earth-mining.com