Tomahawk missiles are coveted by militaries around the world because they can hit a target 1,000 miles away. That accuracy is possible because their fins use powerful magnets made of samarium — a rare-earth metal that can tolerate high heat.

由于能精准命中千里之外的目标，“战斧”巡航导弹成为了各国军方所觊觎的利器。这种精确制导的实现依赖于弹翼上使用了由钐制成的强力磁体——钐是一种能够耐受高温的稀土金属。

When China put restrictions on some rare-earth exports this year, it cut off the supply of samarium to American defense contractors that sell to Raytheon, the maker of Tomahawk missiles. Samarium is processed almost exclusively in China, where more than 85 percent of the world’s rare-earth magnets are made.

今年中国对部分稀土实施出口管制后，切断了向美国国防承包商供应钐的渠道，而这些承包商为“战斧”导弹的制造商雷神公司供货。钐几乎完全在中国进行加工，全球超过85%的稀土磁体产自中国。

A carefully orchestrated deal involving two European companies gave U.S. defense contractors access to a new source of samarium, allowing production to continue for now. But that supply — made from material that had been sitting in a factory in France since the 1970s — is limited. Now the Trump administration is racing to develop a new source before the European stockpile runs out.

一项经过精心安排、涉及两家欧洲公司的交易为美国国防承包商提供了新的钐来源，使生产暂时得以继续。但这一供应来自一批自上世纪70年代起就存放在法国一家工厂里的原料，数量十分有限。现在，在欧洲库存耗尽之前，特朗普政府正争分夺秒地开拓新的供应来源。

China began requiring export licenses for samarium and six other rare-earth metals in April after President Trump rolled out tariffs against China and several other nations. A spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in an email that the export controls had been instituted to “defend world peace.” Foreign companies that use samarium for military purposes are no longer allowed to buy it.

今年4月，在特朗普总统对中国等多国加征关税后，中国开始要求钐以及另外六种稀土金属的出口必须获得许可证。中国驻华盛顿大使馆的一名发言人在电子邮件中表示，这些出口管制措施是为了“维护世界和平”。将钐用于军事目的的外国企业已被允许采购该材料。

“No defense contractor will be able to use the same path to buy samarium metal that we’ve used in the past,” said an executive for one of Raytheon’s suppliers, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “You’re on the naughty list. You’re not getting that material.”

“所有国防承包商都无法沿用过去的采购渠道获取钐金属，”雷神公司一家供应商的高管坦言。由于话题敏感，此人要求匿名。“我们已被列入黑名单，再也拿不到这种材料了。”

Most rare-earth magnets are made of neodymium, which is used in everyday applications such as cellphones, auto parts and electronics. But the defense industry requires samarium-cobalt magnets, which can withstand extreme heat.

大多数稀土磁体由钕制成，广泛用于手机、汽车零部件和电子产品等日常领域。但国防工业需要的是钐钴磁体，它们能够承受极端高温。

一块钐样品，它具有很高的耐热性。

The stakes for finding alternatives are enormous. Unless new sources of samarium or a substitute material can be found, American manufacturers won’t be able to build fighter jets or precision-guided missiles. They may be forced to sacrifice precision if they can’t get the right magnets, said Aisha Haynes, a former Defense Department official responsible for supply chain issues.

寻找替代方案极为重要。除非能够找到新的钐来源或替代材料，否则美国制造商将无法生产战斗机或精确制导导弹。曾负责供应链事务的前国防部官员艾莎·海恩斯表示，如果无法获取合适的磁体，他们可能被迫在武器精度上作出牺牲。

New systems in development — such as hypersonic missiles — also depend on securing non-Chinese sources of samarium.

正在研发的新型装备系统——例如高超音速导弹——同样取决于能否从中国之外的地方获得钐金属。

“You never want to give any one nation that much power,” said Ms. Haynes, who retired in April. “They can turn that source on and off whenever they want.”

“绝不能让任何一个国家拥有如此大的主动权，”已于4月退休的海恩斯说。“对方随时可以切断供应阀门。”

The situation would be more dire if not for the foresight of people experienced in magnet making. Arnold Magnetic Technologies, a Rochester, N.Y.-based manufacturer of samarium-cobalt magnets with factories in Switzerland, Thailand and China, had over a year’s supply of the metal on hand when China announced its export controls on April 4, said Aaron Williams, the company’s chief commercial officer.

若非磁体制造业内人士的远见，局势或将更为严峻。总部位于纽约罗彻斯特，在瑞士、泰国和中国设有工厂的Arnold Magnetic Technologies首席商务官亚伦·威廉姆斯透露，当中国于4月4日宣布出口管制时，该公司手头已备有超过一年的钐金属库存。

As the summer wore on, Arnold’s customers began to worry about what would happen when that inventory ran out. Arnold turned to Grant Smith, the chairman of Less Common Metals near Liverpool, England, one of the last remaining manufacturers of rare-earth metals in the Western world.

到了夏天，Arnold公司的客户开始担心库存耗尽后怎么办。于是，Arnold公司向英格兰利物浦附近的Less Common Metals公司董事长格兰特·史密斯求助——该企业是西方世界所剩不多的稀土金属制造商之一。

Mr. Smith had already spent years hunting for alternatives to Chinese samarium. He found one: a decades-old cache of samarium nitrate in a factory in France. The material was owned by Solvay, a Belgian chemical company with a factory in France that was once one of the world’s largest producers of rare-earth oxides.

史密斯多年来一直在寻找中国钐的替代来源。最终他在法国的一家工厂找到了：一批封存数十年的硝酸钐库存。这批原料的所有者是比利时化工企业索尔维，其法国工厂曾位居全球最大稀土氧化物生产商之列。

Turning rock into magnets requires separating the 17 rare-earth elements from one another using massive vats of solvents, a process Solvay helped pioneer. Solvay had stopped separating rare-earth elements in France two decades ago, according to a spokeswoman, who said it had become “uneconomical.” Samarium processed outside China is five to eight times as expensive, Mr. Williams said.

将矿石转化为磁体需使用大型溶剂槽分离17种稀土元素，这一工艺正是索尔维公司参与开创的。据该公司发言人透露，20年前索尔维已停止在法国的稀土分离业务，称其变得“无利可图”。威廉姆斯指出，在中国以外加工的钐成本要高出五到八倍。

But Solvay kept its stock of semifinished materials and still had the know-how and equipment to refine it into a form that Mr. Smith could use. And Less Common Metals happened to have an old furnace that could handle the job.

但索尔维保留了半成品库存，并且仍掌握着将其进一步精炼成史密斯所需形式的技术与设备。而Less Common Metals恰巧拥有一台能处理此工序的旧熔炉。

法国拉罗谢尔的一家索尔维公司旗下的稀土工厂。

Mr. Smith lined up customers, including Arnold and Permag, which owns Electron Energy Corporation, another American manufacturer of samarium-cobalt magnets that has supplied the American defense industry for decades. That created a kind of buyers’ club, enabling Mr. Smith to offer Solvay an attractive price to refine the entire stash, roughly 200 tons.

史密斯迅速组建了客户联盟，除Arnold还包括Permag——后者旗下的Electron Energy Corporation是数十年来为美国国防工业供应钐钴磁体的另一家制造商。这种买家俱乐部模式使史密斯能向索尔维报出具有吸引力的价格，以精炼全部约200吨库存。

Mr. Smith brought Solvay’s samarium to Britain, where his company is turning it into metal that will be melted into alloys. His customers will press the material into blocks that factories in the United States will cut into magnets. Those magnets can go into motor systems of devices called fin actuators, which adjust the trajectory of a missile by positioning the fins on its body.

史密斯将索尔维的钐运至英国，在那里将其转化为可熔炼合金的金属锭。随后，他的客户会把这些材料压制成块，美国的工厂再将其切割成磁体。这些磁体最终将植入导弹的弹翼舵机系统——通过调节弹体尾翼方位来控制飞行轨迹。

Mr. Smith’s deal was just coming together when China announced its restrictions. Since then, his phone has not stopped ringing as desperate aerospace and defense companies search for samarium.

史密斯的交易刚刚谈妥，中国宣就布了出口限制。自那以后，他的电话几乎就没停过，焦急的航空航天和国防企业四处寻找钐的来源。

“When they rang up, I was able to put my hand on my heart and say: ‘You do not need to panic. We have you covered,’” said Mr. Smith, whose company previously struggled to make a profit. “From April 4, I’ve had two days off. I’m not joking. It’s been crazy.”

“他们打来电话时，我可以拍着胸口告诉他们：‘不用恐慌，我们已经替你们安排好了，’”史密斯说。他的公司此前经营状况一直不佳。“从4月4日开始，我只休了两天假。我不是在开玩笑，真是忙疯了。”

Mr. Smith estimated that Solvay’s stash would last his American defense industry customers more than a year.

史密斯估计，索尔维的这批库存足够其美国国防工业客户使用一年多。

“The issue with rare earths is that it has to be economical to process — you need volume,” Mr. Williams of Arnold said. “Grant made a short-to-medium-term bridge, and it was extremely important.”

Arnold公司的威廉姆斯表示：“稀土的问题在于，加工过程必须足够经济——你需要足够大的规模。格兰特搭建了一座短期到中期的‘过渡桥梁’，这一点至关重要。”

The demand for samarium is relatively small. The U.S. defense industry requires less than 200 tons per year, according to estimates by Jack Lifton, co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute, an organization that advises the industry.

钐金属的市场需求相对有限。据行业咨询机构“关键矿物研究所”联合主席杰克·利夫顿估计，美国国防工业年需求量不足200吨。

Mr. Smith expressed confidence that other sources would be up and running before the Solvay stash ran out, but it is far from clear where the next batch will come from.

史密斯对在索尔维库存耗尽前启动其他供应源充满信心，但下一批钐将来自哪里，仍远未明朗。

The Trump administration has given MP Materials, the owner of a California rare-earth mine, a $150 million loan to expand its processing facility to handle samarium, as part of a larger, multibillion-dollar deal with the company. But that project could take years to come to fruition.

特朗普政府已向加利福尼亚稀土矿的所有者MP材料公司提供了1.5亿美元贷款，用于扩建其钐金属加工设施，这是与该企业数十亿美元合作计划的一部分。但该项目可能需要数年才能实现产能。

The Trump administration has also extended a $80 million loan to ReElement Technologies, an Indiana firm that is using a new technology to process samarium. A third company, Ucore Rare Metals, from Canada, has received $22.4 million in grant funding from the U.S. military to build a facility dedicated to producing samarium and gadolinium in Louisiana, also using a new technology.

此外，政府还向印第安纳州的ReElement Technologies提供了8000万美元贷款，该公司正运用新技术加工钐。第三家企业——加拿大的Ucore Rare Metals——已获得美国军方2240万美元资助，将在路易斯安那州建设专门生产钐和钆的设施，同样采用创新技术路线。

But government support is no guarantee of success. In 2023, Lynas Rare Earths, an Australian mining company, received a Defense Department contract to build a rare-earth processing plant in Seadrift, Texas. The project wasn’t completed. Now Lynas is expanding a plant in Malaysia where it aims to separate samarium and other metals by April.

但政府的支持并不能保证成功。2023年，澳大利亚矿业公司Lynas Rare Earths获得美国国防部合同，在得州锡德里夫特建设一座稀土加工厂，但该项目未能完成。如今，Lynas正在扩大其位于马来西亚的工厂，目标是在4月前分离钐及其他金属。

Skeptics say the Trump administration is giving money to companies that have never made magnets before. They add that much of the funding is going into producing neodymium-iron-boron magnets, not the samarium-cobalt magnets that the defense industry needs most.

质疑者指出，特朗普政府正在资助那些从未生产过磁体的企业，且大量资金流向了钕铁硼磁体生产，而非国防工业最急需的钐钴磁体。

The administration’s efforts to boost the industry have prompted a flurry of ambitious announcements. For instance, USA Rare Earth, a company formed in 2019, recently announced plans to build a processing facility in Stillwater, Okla. Last month, it cleared the final hurdle to buy another company: Mr. Smith’s Less Common Metals.

政府推动产业发展的努力引发了一连串雄心勃勃的计划。例如，成立于2019年的USA Rare Earth近日宣布计划在俄克拉何马州斯蒂尔沃特建设一座加工设施。上个月，该公司为收购另一家公司——史密斯的Less Common Metals——扫清了最后一道障碍。