RE: Mine to Magnet: The U.S.–Angola Supply Chain Takes Shape28 Oct 2025 15:41
Kensho - regarding the Trump/Xi Thursday 'rumble in the jungle'. Xi has been playing a very long game with domination of RE metals extraction, refining, magnet production and finished goods with magnet tech. He and his predecessors have been on this one for at least 25 years now. Trump hates to be the 'one with no cards' at the negotiating table, but it does indeed look like Xi has him over a barrel on RE magnets, due to this long-term monopoly play and the tin-eared response of the rest of the world to the threat posed by an obvious economic weapon.
Trump's primary problem is - securing the supply of China's essential magnet products until he and the rest of the West can get on-shored mine-to-magnet supply lines operating - that's probably about 2 or 3 years at very best - only if the West, Japan and Australia cooperate to the absolute max and all open up their purses fast.
So, what's to stop China from maximising the pain while it can?
Yes there's tariffs, but they have a huge effect on the whole world's economy, as well as the US itself, but does Trump have any other 'trumps' in his hand of cards?
Maybe one. That's HPQ. High Purity Quartz. There are currently no viable sources of HPQ quartz sand in China. China announced they have just discovered miilions of tons of it - but it's not the right type, and its in granite and its buried under a mountain range, and it will take more research on how to refine it to the necessay 4N or 'pico' grades required for RE use and semiconductor chip fabrication.
Who produces almost all of the world's high-purity silica sand? The USA at its Spruce Pine deposit in North Carolina - and it exports 10's of thousands of tons a year to - China.
Why? Ultra high purity silicon UPHS is essential to make the high-temperature/non-contaminating refractory crucibles which are indespensable in RE magnet netal purification and manufacture. The Spruce Pine quartz sands are the primary volume supplier of this raw material for UHPS.
OK - there are ways to produce ultra high purity silicon from poorer-quality quartz raw materials - but they are extremely expensive and very hard to scale up to volume quantity, and China hasn't cracked it (yet), but it no doubt will.
Which gives Trump a temporary choke-hold window over China - which he is going to lose sooner or later, because China is acutely aware it is highly dependent on the US to keep its RE refineries running. Nevertheless, it gives him scope for a breather in the next year or two to sort out the mess the West has got itself into over REs and magnets. Here's hoping he knows about this and plays his cards well....
Sign In
Follow the stocks
