Wanted: Non-Chinese rare-earth elements

The escalating US–China trade war and a newly enacted ban on defense acquisitions of high-performance permanent magnets made in China are underscoring US dependence on the Asian nation for rare-earth elements (REEs). Last month, the Trump administration backed away at the 11th hour from imposing steep tariffs on REEs from China, the source of nearly 90% of them, after appeals from US industrial consumers of the elements. The proposed duties, which would also have applied to some products that contain REEs, including some permanent magnets, catalysts, phosphors, and other chemicals, had been among the $200 billion worth of Chinese imports on which the White House had planned to levy duties at the border.
In addition to the 15 lanthanides—elements 57 through 71 in the periodic table—the REEs include scandium and yttrium because they occur with the lanthanides and exhibit similar properties. Despite their name, rare earths are relatively plentiful in Earth’s crust. But they do not often occur in sufficient concentrations to be economically extractable, and they are difficult to separate from one another.

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