Iran war exposes reliance on China for rare earths used in weapons

Whatever Trump says, the war has caused a run on missiles, radars and guidance systems that could take years to replace. For anyone relying on US military support this has the makings of an existential crisis.

In the first 36 hours of the war, the US and Israel used 3,000 precision-guided weapons, according to Pentagon estimates, at a cost of more than $5bn. After six days, that number doubled. If money was the only factor, this wouldn’t be so serious. But the looming shortage is of minerals – specifically, of rare earths found in most sophisticated weapons systems.

China controls the supply of most of these rare earths and is using that to restrict the US military capacity on which Taiwan, for example, ultimately depends. This is not a problem money can solve overnight.

Dysprosium and terbium are essential for magnets that can withstand extreme temperatures. They are used in everything from precision-guided munitions to aircraft and the Thaad and Patriot anti-missile systems being being used in Gulf states and Israel.

The Washington Post reported this month that the US was moving Thaad and Patriot systems from South Korea to the Middle East, where the war is burning through stockpiles of anti-missile interceptors. Even US stocks left untouched in Taiwan would be exhausted within a week of a Chinese invasion, a 2023 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated.

The US still has no sustained commercial-scale domestic production of dysprosium or terbium. According to the US Geological Survey, it remains 100% reliant on imports, for them and China has shown it is willing to use its dominance in these supply chains for strategic leverage. in April, China declared export controls on seven rare earths – controls a leading expert said were “designed to directly hit the US military-industrial complex”. In October, Beijing suspended rare earth exports for a year after President Xi met Trump in South Korea.

Gallium, another niche mineral, is used in high-performance military radar. Repairing two systems on US bases in Qatar and Bahrain attacked by Iran in the first week of the war could require more than 70kg of it and take up to eight years, according to a study by the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines, because China controls 98% of the world’s supply of gallium.

As a result, the Iran war weakens Trump’s hand before his next meeting with Xi. He has backed efforts to build a domestic rare earth supply chain but first he may struggle to wage war with Iran and confront China at the same time.

Henry Sanderson is the author of Volt Rush: the Winners and Losers in the Race to go Green

Photograph by Andy Buchanan / Getty Images