Japan, US team up to challenge China’s rare earth dominance

Japan and the United States are moving toward closer cooperation on developing rare earth deposits near Minamitorishima, a remote Pacific island more than 1,000 miles southeast of Tokyo, Mettis Global reported. Both countries want to lessen their reliance on China for key minerals. The seabed around the island holds heavy rare earths such as yttrium, gadolinium and dysprosium, which are used in semiconductors, electric vehicle motors and military equipment.

Japan's Cabinet Office described early results from samples gathered this year as promising, and more drilling is planned. Tokyo hopes to draw up a commercial plan by 2028, Bloomberg reported. After a March meeting between Donald Trump and Sanae Takaichi, the two sides committed to joint work on deep-sea mining. Japanese officials are also considering US companies with offshore expertise, and Houston-based Deep Reach Technology has already held preliminary talks with them.

Extraction faces major technical and financial hurdles, since the deposits lie far deeper than most offshore oil wells and pressure at the site is estimated at about 600 times surface levels. Development could cost billions of dollars and take over a decade, and one private estimate puts production costs at about three times those of land-based output in China. For Japan, the project is also about economic security, supply diversification and a closer partnership with Washington, with around $5.7bn in public and private deep-sea investment envisaged by 2040.