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Beijing’s new restrictions on rare-earth materials ignited a political and economic firestorm. But the latest trade rift generated a surprising upshot: an American company jumping into the rare earths mining business.
Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), the Ohio-based steel company, is already exploring the excavation of rare-earth material and has identified two promising sites, the company announced on Monday. Investors scrambled to get in on the resource play, sending shares up by more than 20%. The sudden excitement over mining is something that we’ve heard before — only this time it’s literally mining. Simply gesturing toward a pivot amid a charged moment is enough to really get the market going, bringing to mind the heyday of corporate pivots to crypto/blockchain and AI. And after Monday, investors may be eyeing the other miners for the next announcement.
But while that mining language, pivot, and timing fall into a neat parallelism with crypto, it’s clearly different than whatever we saw during the Long Island Blockchain (née Iced Tea) era.
Cliffs’ ambition signals a new period of corporate nationalism. If trade conflicts will come to define the first year of the second Trump era, executives pinning their own priorities to national imperatives is one of 2025’s biggest themes. Pulling in the same direction as the president has distinct business advantages.
“If successful, it would align Cleveland-Cliffs with the broader national strategy for critical material independence, similar to what we achieved in steel,” said CEO Lourenco Goncalves as the company reported third quarter earnings. “American manufacturing shouldn’t rely on China or any foreign nation for essential minerals, and Cliffs intends to be part of the solution.”
We’ve seen the playbook — and it’s working. Cliffs is operating in the mode of Nvidia (NVDA), Whirlpool (WHR), much of Big Tech, and US manufacturing in general, fashioning their businesses as an instrument of American competition and technological sovereignty.
Beijing’s new restrictions on rare earths and the White House’s fresh round of tariff threats highlighted the strategic importance of the critical minerals and the vulnerabilities of not controlling them.
Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
What Cliffs is offering, then, isn’t just a new way to make money from its existing assets, but a new, indispensable weapon in the trade war. Or at least the prospect of leverage as the White House negotiates with China.
Timing is a roadblock, however, and represents the big “but” for the entire onshoring movement. Just like other businesses with plans to expand manufacturing operations in the US, getting the infrastructure, machinery, and people in place could take years.
“The US government has invested in ramping up rare earth mining, refining, and magnet manufacturing but even on the scheduled timeline some of these facilities will not be operational before 2028,” said a team of economists at Goldman Sachs in a report published this weekend on China’s expanded rare-earth controls. At least digging is theoretically easier than chipmaking.
Other companies are devising clever workarounds. Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics announced a project last week in collaboration with Stellantis (STLA) to develop a next-generation electric motor that uses magnets free of rare-earth elements.
For companies like Cliffs, the succession question will hang in the air. If and when a future administration walks back these policies, where will the company stand as potentially cheaper Chinese rare earths make their way stateside? Once again, perhaps easier for mining than for something farther down the production chain.
In the meantime, the promise of a solution to foreign-dominated supply chains, even with exceptional delay, is more than enough to move markets and add a whopping amount of value.
Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on X @hshaban.
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