The Rare Earth Game: Who's Really Holding the Cards?

The global race for rare earths just got spicier. Here’s the raw data: China sits on 44M metric tons of rare earth reserves—nearly 2x Brazil’s 21M—and already controls 270K MT annual production (70% of global output). Meanwhile, the US only holds 1.9M MT reserves but somehow ranks 2nd in production at 45K MT. Weird flex, right?

The kicker? Brazil’s got second-largest reserves but produced basically nothing (20 MT in 2024). That’s about to change though—Serra Verde’s ramping up Pela Ema to hit 5K MT/year by 2026, becoming the only non-Chinese shop producing all four critical magnet rare earths (neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, dysprosium).

Here’s where it gets geopolitical:

• Myanmar’s the dark horse: China’s quietly importing heavy rare earths from there (no public reserves data, sus), but the environmental damage is brutal—2,700+ illegal leaching pools in the mountains by mid-2022
• India’s sleeping giant: 6.9M MT reserves, 35% of world’s beach/sand minerals, but only producing 2.9K MT. New rare earth magnet plant announced October 2024
• Greenland’s on Trump’s radar: 1.5M MT reserves, two major projects (Tanbreez + Kvanefjeld) stuck in permitting hell
• Vietnam got rekt: Reserves downgraded from 22M to 3.5M MT year-over-year after execs got arrested for tax fraud

Global context: 390K MT produced in 2024 (up from 376K in 2023). Total reserves: 130M MT. EV/tech boom means demand’s only going up, but supply concentration in China + environmental risks = supply chain nightmare.

The real play? Watch Brazil and India. If they scale production, China’s leverage drops. If they don’t, we’re stuck in a bottleneck.