Where Are the World’s Rare Earth Minerals? (Jan 2025)
One country dominates: China controls 44 million metric tons of reserves and ~70% of global production. That single red slice is bigger than the rest of the planet combined.
Second place? Brazil with 21M tons… yet it produces less than 1% of world supply.
The rest is scattered: India 6.9M, Australia 5.7M, Russia 3.8M, Vietnam 3.5M, USA 1.9M, and tiny Greenland 1.5M. Everyone else is a rounding error.
Reality check: your smartphone, EV battery, wind turbine, and missile guidance system all depend on 17 obscure elements that mostly come from one geopolitical rival.
Diversifying supply is now a national security issue for the West. Mines take 10–15 years to open. We’re late.
Source: USGS 2025