China’s Rare Earths Crackdown Puts MP Materials in the Spotlight

The long road from mine to magnet

Corbett is the first to admit that the broader conversation around rare earths often oversimplifies the challenge. Headlines usually focus on mining or magnets, but the real bottlenecks, he stresses, lives in the middle.

“You don’t magically take NdPr oxide and turn it into a magnet in a magnet factory,” he said. The process includes converting oxide to metal, metal to alloy flake, flake to powder, then pressing, sintering, slicing and grinding. Each step requires specific infrastructure, technical expertise, and — perhaps most critically — experience.

Corbett sees this gap clearly in the wave of public announcements from companies claiming plans for large-scale magnet facilities. “We see all these announcements, ‘We’re going to do a 10,000 ton magnet plant.’ They’ve never made metal before,” he said. “Good luck. It takes time. It takes investment. It takes R&D.”

When MP listed five years ago, it was still producing only rare earths concentrate. The company told investors it would revisit magnet-making discussions around 2025.

Yet geopolitical urgency pushed MP to accelerate that timeline, leading to the company’s fully integrated US facility in Fort Worth, where metal, alloy and finished magnets are now all made domestically.

“It is critical that we master all of them at scale,” Corbett said. Without that, any new facility is vulnerable to single-point failures, the same dynamic that has left the industry heavily reliant on China.

Where the real rare earths bottleneck lies

Asked what truly slows western rare earths supply chain development, Corbett didn’t point to mining. Instead, he pointed to refining, a stage China has dominated for decades.

“China doesn’t have 99 percent of the upstream reserves,” he noted. “They have the refining capacity and capability.”

That distinction is shaping MP’s next major step: a new world-scale refining facility in Saudi Arabia, built in partnership with Maaden and backed by the US Department of Defense (DoD).

The project is designed to process feedstocks from around the world, including materials that are too small, too short-lived, or too geographically constrained to justify their own refineries.

Crucially, the new plant is being built with capital from the US government, not MP. “We didn’t want to be putting more capital at risk overseas while we’re fulfilling promises in the US,” Corbett said.

He added that the government wanted the facility built, and MP brought the technical and operational capability; the equity investment from the DoD bridged the gap.

The structure is unusual. According to Corbett, this is the first time since World War II that the DoD has taken an equity stake in a private company. But he argued that the situation demands it.

“From a supply chain and national security perspective, we are that far behind.”

A price floor that reshapes incentives

The DoD’s involvement didn’t end with the Saudi facility. The department also struck a landmark agreement with MP, establishing a price floor for NdPr oxide, the high-value rare earths ingredient inside permanent magnets.

The deal is “absolutely transformational,” Corbett said.

Rare earths prices are highly vulnerable to sudden moves from China, a fact that has long posed an existential risk to western refiners. “What good is it tfmo invest billions of dollars if the second you turn your refinery on, prices go from US$170 to US$45?” questioned Corbett.

The agreement is structured to avoid distorting the downstream market. MP still sells oxide at market prices; the government covers the difference only when the price falls below the negotiated threshold.

“It doesn’t impact the pricing of our magnets at all,” Corbett explained. “That was really important to us.”

If prices soar — something Corbett says he would welcome — MP would pay the government.

“I hope five years from now I’m being accosted by investors for taking this deal, because prices are so high we’re cutting checks back to the government,” he said.

Apple, recycling and the next phase

Earlier this year, MP announced another milestone — a major partnership with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to source 100 percent recycled rare earth materials for the tech giant’s devices.

Recycling is often framed as a threat to miners. Corbett argues the opposite.

“It’s still a game of scale and expertise in refining,” he said. “It’s just a different feedstock.”

In many ways, recycled magnets are easier to process than raw ore. The challenge is achieving sufficient volume and consistency, something MP believes Mountain Pass is uniquely positioned to enable.

“Integration matters,” Corbett said. By blending recycled materials with the mine’s large, steady feedstock, MP can smooth out the variability inherent in end-of-life magnets.

A new playbook for national resources?

Taken together, MP’s 2025 announcements point toward a broader shift in how western governments approach critical minerals supply chains moving forward. Heavy government involvement through frameworks like equity stakes, price floors and international partnerships may represent a new template.

“This administration is approaching it with the mentality that it’s going to take real dollars to make this happen,” Corbett said. And if its investments pay off, he argues, they could help rebuild an industrial base the US hasn’t had in decades as a US company positions itself to offer the full value chain, from mining and refining to producing finished magnets.

“Once the flywheel gets going,” Corbett said, “You’re onto something.”