The Scale Gap, Today
Finished rare earth permanent magnet output (NdFeB + SmCo + bonded), 2025.
China
~260,000+ mt/yr
~132,000 mt high-performance sintered NdFeB; 85–90% global share
US Allies (Japan, EU, S. Korea, Australia)
10,000–14,000 mt/yr
~4–5% global share; Japan is the largest single bloc
United States
~3,600 mt/yr
<2% global share; effectively zero as recently as 2020
China's Output Multiple
~14–17×
China vs. the U.S. and all its major allies combined
Global Market Share
A part-to-whole view of finished-magnet output. "Rest of World" covers producers outside the three tracked blocs and is inferred as the residual against China's and the allied bloc's reported shares (not separately itemized in the source report).
Read this carefully: the 2030 figures are company-stated and government-projected targets,
not achieved production. Historical rare earth project execution rates suggest 30–50% timeline slippage is
common across this industry — the ~20% non-China milestone is achievable on paper but far from guaranteed.
Notably, if the U.S. buildout executes on schedule, it — not the allied bloc — becomes the larger non-Chinese
producer by 2030 (~40,000+ mt/yr vs. allies' ~28,000–32,000 mt/yr), a reversal from today.
The U.S. + Allied Buildout Race, 2026–2030
China's absolute scale (~270,000 → ~330,000+ mt/yr over this period) is off the chart below by roughly two orders of magnitude — plotting it on the same axis would flatten the US/allied bars to invisible slivers. This chart instead isolates the two catching-up blocs so their own growth trajectory is legible.
2026 (est.)
2027 (target)
2028 (target)
2030 (ceiling)
United States (mt/yr)
US Allies combined (mt/yr)
For reference: China's own trajectory over the same period runs ~270,000 mt/yr (2026) → ~285,000 (2027) →
~300,000 (2028) → ~330,000+ (2030 ceiling) — company-stated/projected figures, all outside this chart's scale.
U.S. Capacity by Supply Chain Stage
The headline magnet-output numbers above are a downstream (finished-magnet) comparison. The table below breaks the U.S. side down by pipeline stage, using each company's own disclosed current volumes where available. China/global context is drawn from the comparative industry report and company dossiers where a sourced figure exists; where it doesn't, the gap is stated plainly rather than estimated.
| Stage | US Current Volume (disclosed) | China / Global Position | Key US Companies |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Mining & Extraction
Upstream
|
50,692 MT total rare earth oxide, 2025 (record, +12% YoY) — Mountain Pass, CA, the only active US REE mine | China's mine output and export-quota system underpin its entire downstream chain. USA Rare Earth's Round Top, TX deposit is in development (no current output); no other US mine is commercial. | MP Materials |
|
Beneficiation / Hydrometallurgy
Upstream
|
Co-located with mining at Mountain Pass; volumes not separately disclosed. EMCO (Noblesville, IN) pre-processes e-waste into mixed RE powder — volumes undisclosed. | No comparative Chinese figure in this dataset; qualitatively, China's beneficiation capacity scales with its mine output above. | MP Materials, American Resources / EMCO |
|
Separation & REE Oxides
Midstream
|
917 MT NdPr oxide, Q1 2026 record (MP, Mountain Pass) · ~500 MT/yr NdPr oxide (Energy Fuels) + first US 99.9%-purity Dy and Tb oxide · ReElement, Momentum Technologies: pilot-scale, undisclosed volumes | China's April 2025 Tier 1 export controls cover Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Lu, Sc, Y — the elements separated at this stage. Per the comparative report, no major operating HREE separation facility exists in the Western world outside Lynas' Malaysia plant; this is the most consequential single chokepoint in the entire non-Chinese chain. | MP Materials, Energy Fuels, ReElement, Momentum, Phoenix Tailings (metallization), Lynas (Hondo, TX — pre-production) |
|
Reduction & Re-metal
Midstream
|
~200 MT/yr RE metals — Phoenix Tailings, Exeter NH (Nd, Pr, Dy, Tb; America's only operating HREE metallization line) · MP Materials Independence facility (Fort Worth) — NdPr metal, volume not separately disclosed | China dominates global metal reduction capacity; no US allied nation operates comparable HREE metallization at scale outside this dataset's coverage. | Phoenix Tailings, MP Materials |
|
Alloy & Powder Manufacture
Midstream
|
Commercial but undisclosed volumes — USA Rare Earth / LCM (UK, strip-cast NdFeB alloy), Electron Energy Corp (SmCo alloy, capacity doubled 2025) | Not covered by a sourced comparative figure in this dataset. USAR's LCM is UK-based; its "covered country" status under DFARS is unresolved as of July 2026. | USA Rare Earth (LCM), Electron Energy Corp. |
|
Magnet Manufacture
Downstream
|
~3,600 MT/yr combined US current capacity — MP (~1,000), eVAC (2,000 target), Noveon (~2,000 ramping), USA Rare Earth (~600 Phase 1a); Arnold and Electron Energy commercial but undisclosed | ~260,000+ mt/yr (all types) / ~132,000 mt/yr high-performance sintered NdFeB, 2025 — roughly 70–260× current US downstream output depending on grade comparison. This is the stage with the most complete, directly comparable data (see Global Market Share above). | MP Materials, eVAC, Noveon, USA Rare Earth, Arnold, Electron Energy, Vulcan (pre-production), Niron (RE-free, pre-production), REalloys (pre-production) |
|
End-of-Life Recycling
Upstream (feedback loop)
|
Feeds into Noveon's ~2,000 MT/yr magnet output above (M2M® recycled feedstock); EMCO pre-processing volumes undisclosed | Recycling is a structural advantage available to any producer regardless of mine access — the US's most China-independent pathway, though still small relative to primary-feedstock volumes industry-wide. | Noveon Magnetics, American Resources / EMCO |