This month, China placed new restrictions on exports of several rare earth minerals and metals, largely as a response to the Donald Trump administration's tariff increases on Chinese goods.

These rare earth substances are used to create powerful magnets, among other things. The magnets are an important component in a wide array of sophisticated products, from consumer electronics and military aerospace technology to electric vehicles and wind turbines.

The Chinese government has reportedly suspended exports. At the same time, it’s figuring out a new licensing system to approve or deny access to these minerals by U.S. companies and individuals. Meanwhile, the White House has its own ideas about expanding domestic stockpiles of these materials.

Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino discussed alternatives to importing Chinese rare earth minerals with Barbara Arnold, professor and chair of mining engineering at Penn State University.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Barbara Arnold: Currently, we do get some of our rare earth elements from other locations. One of the things, though, is that if we have a mine here in the U.S. that's producing these concentrates of these minerals, then it goes to China, for the most part, to then be processed. And so it's that processing and then getting the individual metals that's the issue here. So a lot of the processing globally is done in China, and then they sell the actual metals, or the minerals, back to us, as well as around the world. But there are a few other places around the world that do those, and there are some locations here in the U.S. that are gearing up to do that. I know that Energy Fuels, at their uranium mill, will bring in rare earth mineral concentrates and actually process them there. There are some research opportunities at the moment that are looking at where we can get things like scandium, for example, some of that's being found in bauxite. Bauxite is the mineral that is used for producing aluminum, and here in the U.S., we do have some bauxite waste materials. And you know, can you get that out of those red muds? That's what they're called — can you get it out of the red mud? We've actually got some students here working on that particular application and having some good success at recovering the scandium from those. I think there's some things out there that, that could work.

Meghan McCarty Carino: How quickly might we be able to pivot to some of these alternative sources?

Arnold: Well, a lot of that's going to depend on the demonstration of these technologies, and if industry will pick them up and run with them. If the government will expedite some permitting types of things, if they can first specifically for maybe some demonstration-scale things. Others, it could take longer. It really depends on which of these that we're talking about. You know, some of these elements are found in greater quantities even in our acid mine drainage from coal and mineral waste streams. So there are some technologies that are at demonstration scale, some at pilot scale, that are looking at recovering these as well. Just a matter of maybe moving them forward more quickly.

McCarty Carino: There have been reports this week that the Trump administration wants to stockpile deep sea metals in order to counter some of these restrictions. What do you make of that strategy?

Arnold: Well, the deep sea mining is something that's not really been allowed on a large scale, yet there are some considerations for disruption of the sea bed. I mean these things are very, very deep. We still need to figure out how to do that mining safely and in an environmentally appropriate way, if it's possible. You know, we still will need the processing capabilities for those because they are a mix of metals. These heavy metals on these nodules are on the sea floor, and we really need to figure that all out as well. You got to bring it up and still process it. So we're still going to need the processing facilities as well, in addition to making sure that the mining is done properly.

More on this

Last month, on our sister podcast “Make Me Smart,” my colleagues Kai Ryssdal and Nova Safo spoke with Gracelin Baskaran, a mining economist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

She noted that the U.S. has spent over $300 million in the last five years to build processing facilities. President Trump recently signed an executive order to boost American mineral production.

But the bigger issue is sourcing — the U.S. produces only a small fraction of the rare earths used in the global supply chain.

You might remember that the administration has sought greater access to Ukraine's mineral supplies, but the negotiations have reportedly hit snags.