WASHINGTON, July 14 — On the factory floor in San Marcos, Texas, workers are pulling rare earth magnets out of old hard drives and electric motors, grinding them down, and pressing them into new shapes for the U.S. military. It is a small operation in a sprawling global supply chain — one the Pentagon is now racing to control. The Department of Defense relies on foreign suppliers for the overwhelming majority of the rare earth magnets that power its most advanced weapons.
According to a 2022 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 98% of the Pentagon’s rare earth magnet supply comes from abroad. China alone provides 90% of those magnets.
Those magnets are not a niche product. Neodymium-iron-boron magnets — NdFeB in military shorthand — are the muscle inside the electric motors, generators, and actuators of the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, the M1 Abrams tank, the Aegis combat system, and precision-guided munitions. Without them, the gear does not turn.
Billions in contracts, a handful of facilities
The Pentagon has been awarding contracts to build domestic capacity since at least 2021. That year, the DoD gave Lynas Rare Earths a $258 million contract to build a rare earth separation facility in Seadrift, Texas. The following year, MP Materials received a $35 million grant for a separation facility at its Mountain Pass mine in California.
In 2023, the DoD awarded a $120 million contract to TDA Research Inc. for a demonstration of rare earth separation technology. And in 2022, the department invested $15 million in Urban Mining Company — now operating as Noveon Magnetics — to produce recycled NdFeB magnets in San Marcos.
Those projects are still coming online. On the ground, the timeline from contract to production runs years.
Beyond magnets: the rare earths in the soldier’s kit
The military’s dependence on rare earth elements goes deeper than tank motors. Yttrium is used in night-vision goggles. Neodymium appears in laser rangefinders.
Samarium-cobalt magnets guide precision weapons. Each of those materials moves through a supply chain that, for now, runs largely through China.
The Defense Logistics Agency maintains a National Defense Stockpile that includes rare earth metals and magnets. The specific quantities held are classified.
Congress steps in
The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act included provisions that would prohibit the Pentagon from purchasing rare earth magnets from what it calls “foreign entities of concern” by 2026. That deadline is now in view. The Pentagon’s Joint Rare Earth Element Working Group, established in 2021, coordinates these efforts across the military services.
But the working group cannot build a factory overnight, and the gap between policy and production remains wide. By nightfall in Washington, the question hanging over the Pentagon’s rare earth strategy is not whether the contracts are signed — it is whether the facilities will be ready in time.
