Mainstream media are getting clued in - article in today's Australian, page-44

Problem is you just can't throw REO at an adversary, someone needs to turn it into something functional thru multiple stages of process, unfortunately US has little of that capability remaining.

5/6 yrs ago I could get access to China exports to US incl NdFeB which averaged 10ktpa.

Two points of complementary data this year suggests mag imports have fallen by half to ~5ktpa, US doesn't even make motors anymore, it imports them.

Reversing that trend is going to take a massive effort over many years and will not succeed without the full support of the major US OEM's.

By contrast there is a significant amount of new PMM design coming out of EU, despite 10% smaller economy they took 52% China NdFeB exports vs US just 17%.

Creating a supply of oxides will fix nothing, there has been NO shortage of cheap REO past 5/6yrs, in reality it is the ability to process them to functional materials that is critical.