Trump Administration Launches $12B Plan to Stockpile Rare Earths

The Mountain Pass rare earths mine in California (TMY350 / CC BY SA 4.0)

The Trump administration has launched a $12 billion initiative to stockpile critical minerals. The initiative is intended to fend off Chinese dominance in the supply chain for these strategic ingredients for manufacturing and defense technology, allowing the U.S. to regain more independence.

Starting in 2011, Chinese conglomerates have consolidated control over the world's market in rare earth element mining and processing, giving Beijing a powerful tool for trade leverage. The U.S. Navy is particularly dependent on these materials: every F-35 fighter requires a reported 900 pounds of rare earths in its electronics and engines; every Arleigh Burke-class destroyer carries more than two tonnes, and every Virginia-class attack sub needs about four tonnes.

China put this leverage to work last year, to considerable effect. The White House began 2025 with a transformative plan to charge port fees on Chinese vessels, a cornerstone of a major U.S. maritime revival program. The fees would have raised billions for U.S. shipbuilding initiatives. In October 2025, ahead of trade talks with the U.S., China announced plans to tightly monitor and control all exports of rare earth mineral-based products. To avert this clear threat to U.S. manufacturing, the administration suspended its port fee plan as part of a negotiated deal with Beijing. This secured continued access to Chinese rare earths, but at a cost.

“We don’t want to ever go through what we went through a year ago," President Donald Trump said Monday in announcing the new reserve.

A domestic rare-earths industry could free the United States from this vulnerability and give it more freedom of action. The new stockpile program - dubbed "Project Vault" - is intended to decouple the American manufacturing supply chain from the decisions of policymakers in Beijing. The newly named U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve will have $10 billion in loan backing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, plus $1.7 billion in private investment. It has support from big players in the tech, automotive and defense sectors, the White House said.

The administration has also paid $400 million for an effective 15 percent equity stake in domestic rare earths and magnets maker MP Materials, making the U.S. government the firm's largest shareholder. The agreement is backed up with a 10-year agreement from the Pentagon to buy 100 percent of MP's magnet production.

However, the administration has stepped back from plans to provide a guaranteed price floor for individual rare-earths producers, according to Reuters. The possibility of market-wide tariffs on each mineral - effectively a price support - is still reportedly on the table.