EXPORT CONTROLS
November 10 Isn't a Return to Old Rules. It's the Start of New Ones.
In September 2010, a Chinese fishing trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard ships near the Senkaku Islands. Japan arrested the captain. Rare earth shipments to Japan then stalled for about two months. Prices spiked. Factories scrambled. The world got its first taste of what happens when one country controls the supply and decides to slow the tap.
That was 16 years ago. The stall was informal, and Beijing denied it. What may come after November 10 is different. It would be formal, written into law, and it could last as long as China wants.
Most coverage frames November 10 as old export controls coming back. That is only half right. In April 2025, China put export licenses on seven rare earths:
samarium
gadolinium
terbium
dysprosium
lutetium, scandium
yttrium.
Those licenses were never suspended. They have been in force for 18 months. The October 2025 package is the part that has not yet taken effect.
That package was six announcements. It added controls on five more rare earth elements and on rare earth technology. It also created an extraterritorial rule: any foreign-made product containing at least 0.1% Chinese-origin rare earths by value would need a Beijing license. A permanent magnet inside a motor could trigger the rule no matter where the motor is built. A month after the package, China suspended all six announcements for one year, to November 10, 2026.
On September 23, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the wider U.S.-China trade truce would run to January 10, 2027. China's commerce ministry confirmed the date on September 28 without naming rare earths. As of mid-October reports, Beijing had not published a notice extending the rare earth suspension itself. Many expect it to follow the truce. Until a notice appears, the date on paper is November 10.
That is twelve days from today. Chinese rare earth magnet exports to the U.S. rose 18% in September from August, to 604 tonnes, with the suspension still active. If the suspension lapsed, the 0.1% rule would reach every manufacturer that uses Chinese rare earths, in any country. On January 1, the Pentagon's DFARS ban on Chinese-origin magnets in defense contracts takes effect too. Two deadlines, fifty-two days apart, both hitting the same supply chain.
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| Source: Strategic Metals Invest · Oct 19, 2026 · USD/kg |
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SPONSORED
Elon Musk: This Could be 180 Times Bigger than SpaceX IPO
Elon Musk is on record predicting this new opportunity is set to be 180 times bigger than the SpaceX IPO.
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ALSO THIS WEEK
EXPLORATION
Cobra Resources Posts a 150-Million-Tonne Maiden Resource at Wudinna
London-listed Cobra Resources (LSE: COBR) declared a maiden JORC resource for its Wudinna rare earths project in South Australia: 150 million tonnes grading 470 ppm TREO, holding about 70,400 tonnes of contained rare earth oxides. About 60 million tonnes of that is in the higher-confidence Indicated category, at 572 ppm. The company set an exploration target of 665 to 1,447 million tonnes across the Boland and Head prospects. About 61% of the tonnes in the Pidinga formation may be recoverable by in-situ recovery, a low-disturbance method already used in uranium. Cost modelling, ISR optimization, and small-scale production testing are planned for 2027.
MARKETS
CME Group Plans Tungsten Futures — the First Critical Minerals Derivative
CME Group announced it plans to list tungsten futures by early Q1 2027, pending regulatory reviews. The contracts will be financially settled against the Fastmarkets assessment for ammonium paratungstate, CIF Rotterdam and Baltimore, the two main Western trading hubs. Jin Hennig, CME's global head of metals, said tungsten “sits at the intersection of advanced manufacturing, semiconductor technologies and geopolitics.” Tungsten is on the U.S. critical minerals list. A futures market won't deliver physical metal during a cutoff, but it creates a public price that every buyer and seller can see.
DRILLINGS
Power Minerals Hits 111 Metres of Ultra-High-Grade Rare Earths in Brazil
Power Minerals (ASX: PNN) reported drilling results from Morro do Ferro in southern Minas Gerais, Brazil. Hole MFSR-057 cut 111 metres of rare earth mineralization from surface at 8.25% total rare earth oxide, including 1.28% magnet rare earth oxides. That is extremely high for a rare earth deposit. Most projects measure grades in parts per million, not percent. The project sits in the Poços de Caldas Alkaline Complex, a region known for rare earths. The company announced the results on October 19.
SPONSORED
Elon's newest bet has nothing to do with rockets
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We have so much to look forward to
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AROUND THE MARKET
Queensland Opens Australia's First Critical Minerals Common User Facility
The Queensland Resources Common User Facility in Townsville opened on October 23. It lets companies test and validate mineral processing methods at scale without building their own demonstration plant. The state backed it with A$146.1 million in the 2026-27 budget. It will focus first on vanadium processing, and may later expand to cobalt and rare earths. Vecco Group is the foundation customer.
China Rare Earth Group Says It Beat Q3 Targets
China Rare Earth Group held its Q3 economic performance meeting on October 23. SMM reports that key indicators for the first three quarters were exceeding expectations, despite what the group called a complex and severe external environment. Leaders called for “firm confidence” in hitting full-year targets and for coordinated preparation of 2027 operating targets, tied to the 15th Five-Year Plan.
Ex-China Rare Earth Prices Edge Lower on Flat Demand
SMM's weekly review, published October 23, shows ex-China prices mostly slipping. PrNd oxide CIF Rotterdam fell $1/kg to $108–120/kg. Terbium oxide FOB dropped $5/kg to $1,156–1,244/kg. Neodymium oxide FOB held at $141–143/kg. Trading stayed sluggish.
Vulcan Elements Partners with NC Collaboratory on Magnet R&D
Vulcan Elements is working with the North Carolina Collaboratory and UNC-Chapel Hill on a research project backed by a $600,000 Collaboratory award. A UNC chemistry group will build quantum-mechanical simulations to predict how atomic-level changes affect a magnet's properties, so Vulcan can improve its magnet performance.
