Why the United States government is funding rare earth mines in Africa
Private investors will not fund rare earth mining in Africa, so the United States government is doing it instead. Rare earths are a group of chemical elements used to make powerful magnets. The Development Finance Corporation, the United States government agency that funds development projects abroad, has committed 62.8 million dollars to rare earth projects in Malawi, Angola, Madagascar and South Africa. Its own count, given to Reuters in August 2026, says none of the 4 projects has reached production yet.
President Trump is looking out for the American people and has made securing our critical mineral supply chains a national priority.
Ben Black, chief executive of the Development Finance Corporation. Source 1.
How dependent the United States is on China
The United States Geological Survey, the government own science agency, counts 71% of United States rare earth compound and metal imports as coming from China between 2021 and 2024. Malaysia supplied 13%, Japan 5% and Estonia 5%. Measured a different way, as a share of everything the country actually used, net import reliance for rare earths eased to 53% in 2024, the lowest point in the 5 year record, then rose to an estimated 67% in 2025, a rise MAOWCE calculates at 14 percentage points in a single year. That same year China tightened its own export controls twice, once in April 2025 and again in October 2025, before suspending the October round for 1 year that November.
The survey groups every remaining source into a single other countries category worth 6%.
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| China | 71 |
| Malaysia | 13 |
| Japan | 5 |
| Estonia | 5 |
| Other countries | 6 |
The survey states 2021 and 2022 as more than 95% and 2023 as more than 90%. This chart draws those 3 years at the values shown, which slightly understates the survey own wording.
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| 2021 | 95 |
| 2022 | 95 |
| 2023 | 90 |
| 2024 | 53 |
| 2025 estimate | 67 |
Where the money is going
The largest single piece of the funding, 50 million dollars, backs the Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project in South Africa, run by TechMet. The agency own project filing describes the plan as reprocessing gypsum wastes from legacy mining activities into rare earth oxides, not digging a new mine. The 2 waste dunes hold 35 million tons of phosphogypsum, a byproduct of decades of phosphate fertilizer production. TechMet aims to start extracting rare earths from them in 2028 and run the project for 16 years. The same filing prices the full project at 317 million dollars, and says TechMet is separately raising a 300 million dollar equity round across its wider portfolio of projects, not this project alone.
In August 2026 the agency made its first ever mining investment in Madagascar, backing the Ampasindava Ionic Clay Rare Earth Project run by Harena Rare Earths, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange. The agency states its case for investing in Africa this way. Global demand for magnets made from rare earth oxides is projected to rise 7.5% a year through 2040, and Africa is estimated to hold up to 30% of the world mineral reserves.
China, South Africa and the United States are counted inside the world total, not added to it. The survey states the world total as more than 75,000,000 tons, drawn here at 75 million tons.
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| World total | 75 |
| China | 44 |
| United States | 1.9 |
| South Africa | 0.86 |
Not every analyst agrees the money is aimed well
Not every industry analyst agrees the money is well aimed. Olimpia Pilch, head of strategy at Critical Minerals Africa, an advocacy group, says the real problem for the sector is demand, not distrust of the projects themselves.
There are far more announced rare-earth projects than there is demand for neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) magnets.
Olimpia Pilch, head of strategy at Critical Minerals Africa, an advocacy group. Source 3.