commits the United States to building 10,000 tonnes of annual rare-earth
magnet capacity by 2028 — roughly ten times the company's current
production. The so-called 10X programme is the biggest visible bet on
non-Chinese rare-earth independence, and it has direct implications for
commercial production of neodymium-praseodymium metal and trial
production of sintered NdFeB magnets during 2025, with the full ramp
targeting approximately 1,000 tonnes per year of finished magnets.¹ The
tonnes per year of capacity, and the existing Independence facility will
be expanded from 1,000 to 3,000 tonnes per year. Combined, MP Materials'
of sintered NdFeB magnets was approximately 138,000 tonnes in 2018
according to CSIS estimates.² MP Materials' 2028 target of 10,000 tonnes
would therefore represent roughly 7 percent of China's historical scale
relative to where U.S. output sits today.
sovereign defence ministry taking a direct equity position in a
commercial mining-and-processing company rather than financing through
grants, loans or offtake contracts alone.
rare-earth content; an Arleigh Burke DDG-51 destroyer requires around
cycle. The DoD treats MP Materials as strategic infrastructure in the
same way it treats specific defence contractors and shipyard operators.
environment. Before China's export-control escalation, the case for
public-sector equity in a rare-earth producer would have been harder to
build. After it, the economic and strategic cases converged, and the DoD
moved quickly.
a verifiable end-to-end value chain. Mountain Pass in California is the
only operational rare-earth mine in the United States — a
bastnaesite-bearing deposit discovered in 1949 and reactivated under MP
oxides feed into metal-making and magnet-forming operations at the Fort
Worth Independence facility.
historically been for Western rare-earth ambitions. A U.S. mine without
by ensuring that every step from ore to finished magnet happens
domestically.
complement — and in several dimensions a direct enabler.
which is downstream of the rare-earth extraction and separation that
industry at 10,000 tonnes per year needs to source its separated
rare-earth oxides from somewhere, and non-Chinese sources — including
Poços de Caldas — are the natural candidates.
obvious. The same logic that produced the 10X partnership could easily
extend to U.S. Department of State or DFC equity positions in Brazilian
projects, or to direct offtake agreements between U.S. magnet
manufacturers and Brazilian producers. The precedent has been set.
narrative that underpins Brazilian rare-earth investment. If Western
capital and policy treat rare-earth independence as strategically
important enough to justify multi-billion-dollar commitments in the
accordingly.
production in the United States) with friend-shoring (production in
allied countries). The 10X programme is primarily on-shoring; the DFC's
US$465 million Serra Verde commitment is primarily friend-shoring.
competitive one.
on-shoring cannot replicate: abundant ionic-clay deposits with
heavy-rare-earth content, lower cost structure, speed to production
larger tonnages than U.S. geology supports without heavy policy
intervention. A world in which both pathways are pursued in parallel is
the most likely outcome of the 2025-2028 period, and Brazil is
positioned to benefit from that parallelism.
schedule. For Brazilian producers, the intervening three years are a
window: during construction, the U.S. will still need supplementary
rare-earth supply, and offtake contracts signed now will underpin the
investment decisions that shape Brazil's 2028-2030 production curve. The
smart read of the 10X programme from São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and
ambition — it is that the combined scale of Western rare-earth demand
growth is arguably bigger than any single supplier can fill alone, and
during 2026-2027 will effectively be supplying the same Western
end-markets that MP Mate