Nomi Prins — The Magnet Bottleneck Nobody's Talking About (And China Controls 99% of It)
Mining rare earths is the easy part — making the magnets is hard, and China controls ~94% of magnet production and ~99% of heavy-rare-earth processing.
One-line take: the real rare-earth chokepoint isn't mining — it's magnet manufacturing. The US can dig up rare earths (MP Materials' Mountain Pass mine), but lacks the processing/separation/sintering know-how to turn concentrate into the permanent magnets that EVs, wind turbines and F-35s need. China controls ~94% of magnet production and ~99% of heavy-rare-earth processing (dysprosium, terbium). Washington is now backing a "magnets-first" company with over $1B to build a complete mine-to-magnet chain. Note: this page is built from the article's free/public portion; the specific Pulse Premium company is revealed to paid subscribers (disclosed the next day as USA Rare Earth / USAR — see the Feb 26 issue), so no buy price is captured here.
1. Stocks & names mentioned
Prins contrasts mining (the easy part) with magnet-making (the bottleneck). MP Materials is named as the US miner; the recommended "magnets-first" company is paywalled in this piece. "View" reflects how each was framed. The "At" link opens the article. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What she said | At |
|---|
| MP | MP Materials | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Runs the only significant US rare earth mine (Mountain Pass) and has a $110/kg DoD price floor — but its strategy is mining/separation first, with magnet manufacturing not yet operational; it solves the easy part, not the magnet bottleneck. | read |
| Heavy rare earths (Dy / Tb) | Permanent-magnet rare earths | — | Positive | The true chokepoint — heavy rare earths (dysprosium, terbium) keep magnets working when hot; China controls ~99% of heavy-RE processing, and April-2025 export curbs sent European dysprosium to 6× Chinese levels in days. | read |
"View" reflects how each name was framed in this article (MP = a miner that doesn't solve the magnet bottleneck; heavy rare earths = the real chokepoint), not a price rating. Built from the article's free/public portion; the recommended "magnets-first" company is paywalled (revealed next day as USA Rare Earth). Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
2. Key points
Mining is the easy part
- The US knows where its rare earths are and how to dig them up — MP Materials' Mountain Pass mine produces thousands of tons of concentrate a year. But concentrate isn't useful: it has to be separated into individual elements, purified to 99.99%+, and manufactured into magnets — and the US lost that processing capability decades ago when cheap Chinese production shut domestic operations.
Making magnets is hard
- Rare earths are chemically near-identical and must be separated (light NdPr for the magnet base; rarer heavy Dy/Tb for heat tolerance), purified, then sintered at precise temperatures with controlled grain structure and anti-corrosion treatments. China spent 30 years perfecting this at scale and now controls ~94% of global permanent-magnet production.
The 99% heavy-rare-earth monopoly
- What makes magnets survive heat are heavy rare earths — dysprosium and terbium — and China controls ~99% of heavy-RE processing. When China restricted heavy-RE exports in April 2025, European dysprosium prices hit 6× Chinese domestic levels within days; some defense and auto production lines slowed or stopped. "You can't substitute your way out of a 99% monopoly."
The government's new playbook
- Washington is taking equity stakes in companies that can solve the problem. The July 2025 MP Materials deal (stake + $110/kg floor) secured mining/separation but not magnets. Prins has identified a "magnets-first" company — proving commercial-scale magnet manufacturing first, then bringing feedstock online — that just received over $1B in federal backing. The window is while the infrastructure is being built, not after magnets ship.
3. In plain English
A jargon-free summary of why each name is in the piece. (Plain-language companion to the table above; renders on each ticker's consolidated page.)
MP — MP Materials Neutral
MP Materials runs America's only real rare earth mine. But Prins points out that digging the metals out of the ground is the easy part — the hard part is turning that raw material into finished magnets, and MP doesn't make magnets yet (its plant isn't running). So while the US government's price-floor deal helps MP, it doesn't fix the actual bottleneck. That's why she rates MP as a context name here rather than the answer to the magnet problem.
Heavy rare earths (Dy / Tb) Positive
Magnets in EVs, wind turbines and fighter jets have to keep working when they get hot — and the special ingredients that make that happen are two "heavy" rare earths, dysprosium and terbium. China processes about 99% of the world's supply of these, so when it briefly cut exports in April 2025, prices in Europe shot up six-fold in days and some factories simply stopped. Prins uses this to show the supply risk is concentrated and almost impossible to substitute, which is exactly why building a Western magnet supply chain is so valuable.
Summary derived from the public (free) portion of the Prinsights Substack article for personal study. Not investment advice; the author's specific recommendation is paywalled. © Nomi Prins / Prinsights for source material.