Pini Althaus: Rare Earths, China’s Grip, and the Fight for Secure Critical Minerals

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/01/10

Pini Althaus is an Australian-born mining executive based in New York and a leading voice on critical mineral security. Since 2002, he has identified and acquired major mining projects across the United States, Canada, Australia, China, Latin America, and Central Asia. He is Chairman and CEO of Cove Capital and Kaz Resources and co-founder and CEO of REEMAG. Previously, he founded USA Rare Earth, guiding it to a valuation above $500 million and a NASDAQ listing. A former UN consultant on critical mineral supply chains, he was an early critic of China’s dominance in rare earths and other critical technologies.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Pini Althaus, a mining executive and critical-minerals strategist, about the global rare earth and tungsten supply chain. Althaus explains that China dominates not only mining but, more decisively, processing and magnet manufacturing, creating systemic vulnerabilities for defense, energy, and advanced manufacturing. He outlines structural barriers in the United States, including underdeveloped deposits, weak midstream capacity, and price manipulation risks. Althaus argues that initiatives such as the Middle Corridor and projects in Central Asia can reduce China’s leverage, strengthen allied supply chains, and secure materials essential to national security.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How would you characterize the current global rare earth supply landscape?

Pini Althaus: The rare earth landscape is extremely concentrated, with China producing most of the ore and almost all downstream capabilities that turn the ore into usable materials, including separation, metal and alloy production, and magnet manufacturing. Several countries, including the United States, Australia, Brazil, and several in Central Asia, are developing new projects, but most of them are still in early or mid-stage development. The world has recognized the strategic risk, yet the industrial capacity needed to address the imbalance is still being built. Until that capacity is in place, we remain vulnerable.

Jacobsen: What is China’s share of mining versus processing?

Althaus: China is dominant in mining, with 70% of the world’s production, but the processing stage is where they have a near monopoly, controlling 90% of the world’s separation and refining capacity and up to 95% of global magnet production. Heavy rare earths like dysprosium and terbium are even more concentrated. This is why dependence persists: even when non-Chinese mines produce ore, it often still ends up routed to Chinese plants to become usable metals and magnets.

Jacobsen: What are significant structural obstacles to scaling rare earth production in the United States?

Althaus: Permitting delays are part of the challenge, but the larger issue is the limited number of development-ready projects. Unlike China, which spent decades exploring and developing a continuous pipeline of deposits, most U.S. deposits remain underexplored or lack the technical work required to attract investment. This limits how quickly domestic supply can scale, even if permitting were perfect.

A second major constraint is downstream capacity. The United States still has limited industrial-scale separation, metal and alloy production, and magnet manufacturing capabilities. Without large-scale, domestic projects coming online, new mines will continue to be pressured to send material overseas, which could recreate the very dependency the U.S. is trying to reduce.

Pricing is another significant barrier. China can shape global rare earth prices in ways that undermine new entrants, either by depressing prices when non-Chinese projects near production or tightening exports when it suits geopolitical interests. Investors are fully aware of this, which is why financing remains difficult even for technically strong projects.

Jacobsen: You are working through the C5+1 framework. How much of China’s current dominance could the Middle Corridor displace?

Althaus: The Middle Corridor will not replace China, but it can meaningfully reduce China’s leverage by providing real, workable alternatives. Central Asia holds substantial deposits of rare earths, tungsten, copper, uranium, lithium, and other critical minerals. Countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have opened their critical minerals sectors to Western investment in a way that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. With proper financing and integration into allied processing and manufacturing, the region could supply a significant share of non-Chinese demand. The goal is not to match China’s scale, but to prevent China from using its dominance to weaponize the supply chain without losing market share.

Jacobsen: What are risks in U.S. dependence on Chinese inputs for defense equipment?

Althaus: The primary risk is that the United States cannot sustain a modern defense industrial base while relying on materials controlled by a strategic competitor. Tungsten illustrates this quite clearly. China dominates global tungsten mining and downstream processing. Its 2025 export controls highlight how quickly access can change. Tungsten is essential for armor-piercing munitions, kinetic penetrators, missile systems, high-temperature aerospace components, and key hardening applications across the defense sector. There are no adequate substitutes for tungsten in many of these uses. When tungsten becomes constrained, production does not simply slow; many critical defense systems cannot be produced at all. This is not just a supply chain issue but a national security vulnerability. 

The recent deal Cove Kaz signed in Kazakhstan begins to change this equation. Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty represent one of the largest undeveloped tungsten systems in the world, and the long mine life and scale have the potential to shift global supply dynamics for decades. By securing 70% ownership and committing to build an integrated, Western-aligned supply chain, the project offers the first truly scalable alternative to Chinese control of tungsten. It moves the United States and its allies from being exposed to price and export shocks to having a reliable, long-term source from a trusted partner country.

This is precisely why President Trump and his administration were so strongly supportive of our efforts. They recognized that securing this project was not just an economic opportunity but a strategic imperative. The administration understood that, without a non-Chinese anchor for tungsten, the U.S. defense industrial base would remain exposed to a single point of failure. Supporting Kazakhstan’s decision, backing U.S. private-sector participation, and elevating this work within the C5+1 and bilateral channels were all part of a broader strategy to ensure the U.S. is never again dependent on China for a material so central to national defense.

Jacobsen: Which sectors are most exposed to rare earth and critical mineral disruptions?

Althaus: Defense and aerospace face the greatest exposure because they rely on high-performance magnets, specialty alloys, and advanced optics. Electric vehicles, renewable energy, and the power grid are also at risk due to their reliance on neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, copper, and battery minerals. Semiconductors, robotics, industrial automation, telecoms, and medical devices face similar risks. Across all these sectors, a small amount of critical minerals enables very high-value industrial systems, which makes disruptions especially costly.

Jacobsen: What is missing from a coherent long-term critical minerals strategy?

Althaus: The United States and its allies need a fully integrated mine-to-magnet and mine-to-battery strategy that survives political and commodity cycles. A durable, bipartisan policy framework is essential so that permitting reform, tax incentives, and strategic offtakes remain stable over time. We also need price and demand backstops that make projects bankable, since geology alone doesn’t attract capital when China can manipulate prices. The midstream remains underbuilt and should be a central focus: separation, metals, alloys, magnets, and battery materials must sit inside allied jurisdictions. Better data, strategic stockpiles, and coordinated planning with Europe, Japan, Korea, Central Asia, and Australia are also key. 

Jacobsen: How can the U.S. and its partners expand rare earth and critical mineral production?

Althaus: The Trump administration has moved faster and more decisively on critical minerals than any prior administration. It has directed federal agencies to prioritize strategic minerals across permitting, financing, and procurement policy. Permitting timelines for high-priority projects are being compressed by coordinating federal reviews, limiting duplicative processes, and directing agencies to treat critical minerals the same way they treat other national security infrastructure. The administration has also mobilized the USGS, DOE, and DOD to support early-stage exploration, resource mapping, and pilot-scale processing work, something the U.S. has historically neglected.

The administration has also activated EXIM and DFC to back critical mineral projects in both the U.S. and allied countries, including new supply routes through Central Asia through the C5+1 framework. The administration has also expanded the Pentagon’s ability to use multiyear offtakes, price-floor mechanisms, and Title III support to underwrite domestic processing and magnet-making capacity. This is the first credible attempt in decades to rebuild an integrated mine-to-magnet and mine-to-battery supply chain in the United States.

All of these initiatives form the foundation of a real industrial strategy, but there are steps that can further enhance and accelerate the impact. One is to formalize long-term, bipartisan legislative backing so that the momentum continues beyond any single administration. Another is to go beyond funding individual projects and establish regional processing hubs in strategic partner countries; Central Asia, Australia, parts of Europe, and the U.S., so materials can be refined, alloyed, and manufactured into magnets inside a trusted ecosystem rather than defaulting to China.

Additional measures that would strengthen the current efforts include expanding price-stability tools for developers; enabling direct procurement of strategic materials for national stockpiles at predetermined price floors; coordinating allied purchasing power to anchor long-term demand; and investing heavily in processing innovation, recycling, and high-temperature metallurgy. A targeted workforce initiative is also critical, because the U.S. lacks the metallurgists, process engineers, and chemists required to run a modern critical minerals industry at scale.

Taken together, the Trump administration’s policies have provided the strongest basis yet for an allied critical minerals architecture. With a deeper project pipeline, stronger midstream infrastructure, durable demand commitments, and coordinated allied investment, the U.S. and its partners can finally build a resilient supply chain that reduces dependence on China and supports both economic competitiveness and national security.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Pini.

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