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Despite having secured export licenses, some Chinese rare earth producers have stopped shipping these materials to the United States over fears of repercussions from China's authorities, sources familiar with the development told Reuters.
The renewed standoff in rare earths comes weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Washington for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump at the end of this month.
A few Chinese suppliers have been refusing to export rare earths to the U.S. since the beginning of August, according to Reuters' sources.
That's when China announced is it placing the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), the organization behind the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) and its RMAP assessments, together with the labor rights organization Verité, on its countermeasure list.
The Chinese rare earth firms are wary of being punished by China for complying with the RMI guidance and due diligence procedures, one of Reuters' sources said.
Other firms from China have been avoiding rare earths exports to the U.S. despite having licenses because they have preferred not to be entangled in the geopolitics and unpredictable trade behavior of the two rivals.
Despite improvements in some areas, such as targeted policies and investment support for rare earth supply chains outside China, the global critical minerals market remains heavily concentrated in leading suppliers, with China being the leader in the mining and refining of many of the metals, International Energy Agency said in a July report.
The global critical minerals market remains highly concentrated, and new threats to supply security have emerged in recent months as China has curbed exports of some rare earth elements, the IEA said.
The Chinese government introduced major export controls on heavy rare earth elements last year.
Although further expanded controls have been suspended until November 2026, their full implementation – if China decides to go through with it – could put an estimated $6.5 trillion per year of downstream production outside China at risk across the automotive, high-tech, defense, and energy sectors, the IEA said in its annual Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 report in July.
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