U.S.-backed rare earth miners are selling into Japan and South Korea while domestic demand develops slowly, exposing a familiar bottleneck: mining can move faster than the industrial system that turns ore into strategic products.
As the EU races to secure rare earths and strategic metals, China’s grip on refining exposes a critical vulnerability in Europe’s green and digital ambitions.
As the World Economic Forum 2026 opens, a storm of debt, digital risk, and geopolitical fracture threatens to upend the rules of the game for everyone.