China shook the world in 2010 when it imposed an embargo on exports of crucial rare earth metals to Japan. Panicked Japanese executives appeared on television to warn that they were running out of the critical raw materials.

2010年，中国禁止向日本出口重要的稀土金属，震惊了世界。惊慌失措的日本企业高管出现在电视上，警告说这些关键原材料即将耗尽。

The embargo, prompted by a territorial dispute, lasted only seven weeks. But it changed the global supply chain for these metals. When the embargo was over, China took forceful control of its mineral bounty. Top officials in Beijing rooted out corruption, crushed smugglers and consolidated the industry under state control.

当时这场由领土争端引起的禁运只持续了七个星期。但它改变了这些金属的全球供应链。禁运结束后，中国强行控制了其丰富的矿产资源。北京的高层官员根除了腐败，打击了走私者，将该行业置于国家控制之下。

The world was put on notice, especially Japan and the United States, two of China’s biggest customers for rare earth metals used in everything from cars to smartphones to missiles. Governments from both countries drafted detailed plans for how to mitigate their dependence on China. Japan has largely followed through on its plans and today can source the minerals from Australia.

这引起了全世界的注意，尤其是日本和美国。这两个国家是中国稀土金属的最大消费国，从汽车到智能手机再到导弹，稀土金属被广泛应用于各个领域。两国政府都起草了如何减少对中国依赖的详细计划。日本基本上落实了自己的计划，如今可以从澳大利亚采购稀土。

Not the United States. Even after 15 years, the country is still almost entirely reliant on China for the processing of rare earth metals. As a result, American automakers, aerospace companies and defense contractors have been left vulnerable.

美国却非如此。即使在15年后，该国在稀土金属加工方面仍几乎完全依赖中国。因此，美国的汽车制造商、航空航天公司和国防承包商处于弱势。

Angry about President Trump’s tariffs, China has suspended all exports of certain rare earths, as well as the even more valuable magnets made from them.

中国对特朗普总统的关税感到愤怒，暂停了某些稀土以及由这些稀土制成、价值更高的磁铁的所有出口。

These small yet powerful magnets — no bigger than a ring for a person’s finger, yet with 15 times the force of a conventional iron magnet — are an inexpensive and often overlooked component of electric motors. They are used in electric and gasoline-powered cars as well as robots, drones, offshore wind turbines, missiles, fighter jets and many other products.

这些磁铁形体虽小，功能却强大，它们不过手指上的戒指大小，但磁力是传统铁磁铁的15倍，是一种廉价的、经常被忽视的电动机部件。它们被用于电动车和燃油车，以及机器人、无人机、海上风力涡轮机、导弹、战斗机和许多其他产品。

位于得克萨斯州沃斯堡的MP材料工厂的稀土磁铁。这些体积虽小功能强大的磁铁是电动机的组成部分。

The American failure to devise an alternative to its dependence on Chinese supplies has spanned Democratic and Republican administrations.

无论是民主党还是共和党政府，美国都未能找到一种替代方案来取代对中国供应的依赖。

“U.S. policymakers for 15 years have done very little to address the risk of dependence on China for rare earths, and specifically rare earth magnets,” said Milo McBride, a specialist in critical minerals at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

美国华盛顿卡内基国际和平基金会重要矿产专家米洛·麦克布莱德表示：“15年来，政策制定者几乎没有采取任何措施来解决对中国稀土，特别是稀土磁铁的依赖风险。”

Rare earths, he said, are “the most strategic minerals of all the minerals that have been discussed for the last several administrations.”

他说，稀土是“过去几届政府讨论过的所有矿物中最具战略意义的矿物”。

Beijing’s 2010 embargo against Japan was undermined by Chinese organized crime syndicates that controlled much of the industry in south-central China in collusion with local officials. The gangsters had been smuggling up to half of China’s annual rare earths production out of the country.

中国政府2010年对日本实施的禁运遭到了中国有组织犯罪集团的破坏，这些犯罪团伙与地方官员勾结，控制了中国中南部地区的大部分稀土产业，将中国稀土年产量的一半偷运出境。

Weeks after the embargo ended, Beijing took revenge. Government forces acting under national security orders stormed the valley near Longnan in Jiangxi Province where much of the world’s heavy rare earth minerals were produced. They seized the privately run mines and jailed thousands of people across southern China. Regulation of the industry was transferred from local governments to Beijing.

当时禁运结束几周后，中国政府采取了整治行动。根据国家安全指令出动的政府部队袭击了江西省龙南附近的山谷，那里是世界上大部分重稀土矿的产地。他们查封了私人经营的矿山，并在中国南方逮捕了数以千计人。该行业的监管从地方政府转移到了北京。

位于江西龙南郊外的一处重稀土矿。从电动汽车到无人机、机器人和导弹，稀土都至关重要。

The mines were later nationalized and consolidated into a single state-run company, China Rare Earth Group. During a visit last week to the valley without the knowledge of the local authorities, there was no sign of the thugs who used to guard southern China’s rare earth mines.

这些稀土矿后来被收归国有，合并为一家国有公司——中国稀土集团有限公司。上周，在当地政府不知情的情况下，我们访问了这座山谷，并且没有在那里发现曾经看守那些中国南方稀土矿的暴徒的踪迹。

China has recently developed its own magnet industry instead of shipping the materials to magnet factories in Japan. Beijing has poured money into building advanced magnet factories in Ganzhou, a city near Longnan.

中国最近发展了自己的磁铁工业，而不是把材料运到日本的磁铁工厂。中国政府已投入大量资金，在龙南附近的赣州建设先进的磁铁工厂。

China now produces 90 percent of the world’s magnets. Further construction was underway at two of Ganzhou’s largest magnet factories last week.

中国现在生产世界上90%的磁铁。上周，赣州两家最大的磁铁工厂正在扩建。

赣州一家生产稀土磁铁的工厂。中国生产了世界上90%的磁铁。

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, said in a speech in 2020 that it was important for China’s national security that the West’s supply chains remain dependent on his country.

在2020年的一次讲话中，中国最高领导人习近平表示，西方的供应链继续依赖中国，这对中国的国家安全非常重要。

“We must build up our strengths and consolidate our international lead in industries where we have an advantage,” he said a few months after visiting Ganzhou’s most advanced magnet factory. He called for “intensifying the dependence of international industrial supply chains on China, forming a powerful capacity to counter and deter deliberate supply cutoffs by foreigners.”

参观赣州最先进的磁铁工厂的几个月后，他表示：“要拉长长板，巩固提升优势产业的国际领先地位。”他呼吁“拉紧国际产业链对我国的依存关系，形成对外方人为断供的强有力反制和威慑能力”。

Japan also took far-reaching actions after the 2010 embargo. Its manufacturers began holding enough rare earths in inventory to meet up to two years of their own needs. They also started looking overseas.

2010年的禁运事件后，日本也采取了影响深远的行动。其制造商开始储备足够的稀土库存，以满足时间长达两年的自身需求。他们还开始把目光投向海外。

The conglomerate Sumitomo Group, with financial backing from the Japanese government, helped support the development of Lynas, an Australian mining company. Lynas mines and refines 60 percent of Japan’s light rare earths, which are mixed with small quantities of heavy rare earths to make rare earth magnets. And the company is preparing to start refining heavy rare earths for Japanese manufacturers this summer in Malaysia, although initially in tiny quantities.

在日本政府的财政支持下，大型企业集团住友商事帮助扶持了澳大利亚矿业公司莱纳斯的发展，该公司开采和提炼的轻稀土占日本需求的60%，轻稀土与少量重稀土混合后可制成稀土磁铁。该公司正准备今年夏天在马来西亚开始为日本制造商提炼重稀土，尽管初期产量很小。

装有稀土矿物的玻璃瓶，由澳大利亚矿业公司莱纳斯从韦尔德山开采。

Japan’s biggest magnet manufacturers — Proterial, Shin-Etsu Chemical Company and TDK Corporation — have moved some production from Japan to China to have reliable access to rare earths, and also to Vietnam, where labor costs are low. But they have also kept considerable production in Japan.

日本最大的磁铁制造商——Proterial、信越化学工业和TDK公司——已经将部分生产从日本转移到了中国，以获得可靠的稀土供应，同时也向劳动力成本较低的越南转移。但它们也在日本保持了相当规模的产量。

The U.S. rare earth magnet industry started with a subsidiary of General Motors in northern Indiana in the 1980s. But factories shut down and moved to China and Singapore.

美国的稀土磁体产业始于20世纪80年代通用汽车公司在印第安纳州北部的一个子公司。但后来该工厂关闭并将业务转移到了中国和新加坡。

After the embargo in 2010, the Japanese company Hitachi Metals, which changed its name in 2023 to Proterial, responding to concern from the administration of former President Barack Obama, built a rare earth magnets factory in North Carolina from 2011 to 2013.

2010年的禁运之后，日本的日立金属公司（2023年更名为博迈立铖）于2011年至2013年在北卡罗来纳州建造了一家稀土磁铁工厂，以回应奥巴马政府的担忧。

The Hitachi Metals factory, with several dozen employees, had higher costs than the giant complexes being built in Ganzhou. American companies proved unwilling to pay extra for magnets produced in the United States and switched to Chinese suppliers. Hitachi closed the factory in 2020 and the equipment went into storage.

日立金属的这家工厂拥有数十名员工，其成本高于赣州正在兴建的大型综合工厂。事实证明，美国公司不愿为美国生产的磁铁支付额外费用，于是转而向中国供应商采购。日立金属于2020年关闭了这家工厂，设备也被封存起来。

MP材料公司的稀土露天矿位于加州帕斯山，是美国唯一仍在从事生产作业的稀土矿。

Today the only active rare earth mine in the United States is in Mountain Pass, Calif. Its operator, MP Materials, plans to start ramping up commercial production of rare earth magnets at the end of the year at a factory in Texas. But even when running at full speed, the facility will produce in a year the equivalent of a day of China’s production.

如今，美国唯一一个活跃的稀土矿位于加利福尼亚州的帕斯山。它的运营方MP材料公司计划年底在得克萨斯州的一家工厂开始稀土磁铁的商业生产。但即使满负荷运转，该工厂一年的产量只相当于中国一天的产量。

Chinese factories supply thousands of tons of rare earth magnets each year to the country’s manufacturers of electric cars and offshore wind turbines — two industries that Mr. Trump has criticized.

中国工厂每年向该国的电动汽车和海上风力涡轮机制造商供应成千上万吨稀土磁铁，而这两个行业都曾经遭到特朗普的批评。

Like magnet production, rare earth mining has also had an uneven history in the United States. The Mountain Pass mine produced a majority of the world’s rare earths from 1965 until 1995, when China began flooding the global market with all manner of low-cost exports.

像磁铁生产的情况类似，美国的稀土开采的历史也并非一帆风顺。从1965年到1995年，帕斯山稀土矿生产了世界上大部分的稀土。1995年，中国开始以各种方式向全球市场出口低成本稀土。

The mine closed in 2002, partly because of ever stricter environmental regulations by California. A $1.5 billion upgrade started in 2010, but mining did not resume until 2017 — and then the mine had to ship its ore to China for processing at low-cost refineries there. Only now has the mine begun refining a large share of its production.

该矿于2002年关闭，部分原因是加州越来越严格的环境法规。一项耗资15亿美元的升级工程始于2010年，但直到2017年，开采才恢复，然后该矿不得不将矿石运往中国，在那里的低成本精炼厂进行加工。直到现在，该矿才开始对其大部分产出进行精炼。

在MP材料公司的稀土矿，一名叉车操作员正在为运输做准备。

Zoning and environmental regulations make it hard to open a rare earth mine in the United States. Opening a rare earth mine in the United States takes 29 years, said Mark Smith, the chairman and chief executive of NioCorp Developments, which has obtained construction permits to build a mine in Nebraska.

区划和环境法规使得在美国开稀土矿困难重重。NioCorp发展公司的董事长兼首席执行官马克·史密斯说，在美国开一座稀土矿需要29年的时间。该公司已经获得了在内布拉斯加州建一座矿的施工许可。

“You can spend a whole career getting a mine up and running,” Mr. Smith said.

“你可能要花上整个职业生涯的时间，才能使一座矿建成投产，”史密斯先生说。

By contrast, mines in China can be opened quickly and do not have to undergo the same kind of rigorous regulatory approval.

相比之下，中国的矿山可以快速开采，而且不需要经过同样严格的监管审批。

Underpinning all the problems is that the global market for the minerals is tiny next to other kinds of mining, like copper.

所有这些问题的根源在于，与铜等其他矿产相比，稀土的全球市场规模很小。

Few American companies have wanted to make big investments in rare earths only to face the risk, as Hitachi found, that customers prefer cheaper products from government-backed industries in China.

很少有美国公司愿意在稀土领域进行大笔投资，因为正如日立公司所经历的那样——客户更喜欢中国获得政府扶持的产业所生产的更为廉价的产品。

“U.S. companies have been reluctant to take the plunge,” said David Sandalow, who oversaw critical minerals policy in the Obama administration

“美国企业一直不愿冒险，”曾在奥巴马政府负责关键矿产政策的戴维·桑德罗说。