Planet Money Battlefield rare earths: How the U.S. lost to China
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Apr 24, 2026 
Mark Smith, former Molycorp CEO, and Emily Fang, NPR correspondent on China and supply chains, trace the rise and collapse of America’s rare earth business. They dig into Mountain Pass, China’s low-cost takeover, rare earths as a geopolitical weapon, Japan’s 2010 wake-up call, Molycorp’s risky comeback, and why Washington is now racing to rebuild the industry.
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The Accidental Discovery That Started Mountain Pass
- Prospectors hunting uranium in 1949 found rare earths at Mountain Pass instead, before anyone had real commercial uses for them.
- Their slow Geiger-counter clicks in the California desert began the supply chain behind phones, jets, and microwaves.
Color TVs Built Molycorp Then Demand Shifted
- Mountain Pass turned Molycorp into a rare earth monopoly because europium made the red color in virtually every color TV.
- By the late 1980s, Mark Smith saw cerium and lanthanum piling up as Chinese competition undercut older uses.
Molycorp Let Chinese Delegations Study Its Process
- Molycorp employees told Mark Smith the company had once invited Chinese visitors to tour its rare-earth operations and photograph the process.
- Emily Fang says 1960s China was still poor and state-planned, so Molycorp likely did not view it as a future rival.