EU urges China for rare earth access amid US tariffs, growing supply worries

The European Union is facing growing calls to act against Beijing’s dominance over rare earth supply chains, highlighting persistent tensions just weeks before the coming EU-China summit.

“Europe faces dual coercion: Trump’s tariffs and more threateningly, China’s strategic chokehold on rare earth exports,” said Bart Groothuis, MEP for Renew Europe, a centrist group in the European Parliament led by French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party.

“This is not collateral damage from the China-USA dispute, this is intentional to hit Europe.”

According to official EU data, the bloc imports 100 per cent of its rare earths and 97 per cent of its magnesium from China. To break this dependency, Renew Europe has called on the EU to diversify its sources, warning that the continent’s reliance on Chinese rare earths leaves it vulnerable to “blackmail”.

Despite acknowledging the legitimacy of these concerns, analysts noted that China would remain a significant supplier for the foreseeable future, with Europe likely to remain dependent on Chinese rare earths for at least the next 10 to 15 years.

Holger Goerg, director of the international trade and investment research group at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, said Europe’s strategy rests on two pillars: increasing recycling capacity and negotiating deals with other countries to diversify imports, both of which would take time.