NdPr Jumped 29% in Eight Weeks. US Rare Earth Stockpiles Run Out in April. There Is No Plan B.

Twenty-nine percent. That is how much neodymium-praseodymium oxide prices climbed between January and February 2026, reaching $12,100 per tonne. NdPr metal hit $55,450 per tonne, up from roughly $43,000 eight weeks earlier. Dysprosium oxide rose 4.9% to $206,000 per tonne. Gadolinium oxide jumped 32.9%.

These are not speculative metals traded by hedge funds chasing momentum. NdPr goes into neodymium-iron-boron magnets. Those magnets go into every EV motor, every offshore wind turbine, every F-35 Lightning II. Without them, the energy transition stops. Without them, fighter jets do not fly.

US manufacturers hold roughly 5-6 months of rare earth inventory, according to industry surveys compiled by Crux Investor. Count backward from October 2025, when China's MOFCOM expanded export controls to 12 of the 17 rare earth elements. Five to six months lands you in April 2026. Next month.

What China Actually Did

On October 9, 2025, China's Ministry of Commerce expanded rare earth export controls from a handful of elements to 12 of 17. On December 1, 2025, the controls went extraterritorial. Products manufactured outside China using Chinese-origin rare earth materials or technology now require export licenses. Not just raw ore. Not just refined oxides. Parts, components, and assemblies.

IEA analysis describes the scope: the controls affect energy, automotive, defense, semiconductors, aerospace, and AI data centers. In 2024, China exported 58,000 tonnes of rare earth magnets, enough to build millions of cars, wind turbines, and weapons systems.

Crux Investor calls it an "FDPR-style" policy, referencing the Foreign Direct Product Rule that the US used to cut Huawei off from advanced chips. Under the new Chinese rules, a license is required even if Chinese rare earths constitute 0.1% of a product's value. A German automaker sourcing NdFeB magnets from a Japanese supplier that used Chinese NdPr feedstock? Licensed. An American defense contractor buying samarium-cobalt alloys from a UK intermediary that processed Chinese samarium? Licensed.

Here is the part that matters: China has not denied any licenses yet. But companies are not waiting to find out. They are panic-buying, and the panic is what drove NdPr up 29% in eight weeks.

Per-Unit Cost Exposure: The Numbers Nobody Ran

Most coverage of the rare earth squeeze focuses on aggregate trade flows. Here is what the price spike means per unit, at current NdPr metal prices of $55,450 per tonne.

F-35 Lightning II. Each aircraft contains 920 pounds (417 kg) of rare earth materials, confirmed by the Department of Defense. Lockheed Martin is the largest US consumer of samarium, using roughly 22.6 kg of samarium-cobalt alloys per F-35 for precision-guided munitions and flight control actuators. Estimated NdFeB magnet content: 50-80 kg per airframe. At current prices, rare earth material cost per F-35 runs $45,000-$75,000. A 29% price increase adds $13,000-$22,000 per aircraft. At 156 planned F-35s per year, that is $2-3.4 million in additional annual rare earth cost for the program alone.

But cost is the wrong frame. You cannot substitute the samarium-cobalt magnets in an F-35's actuators. No samarium, no actuators, no aircraft. Period.

Electric vehicle motors. A typical battery-electric vehicle uses 1-3 kg of NdFeB magnets in its drive motor. NdFeB is roughly 30% neodymium and praseodymium by weight. At current NdPr metal prices, magnet cost per EV runs $55-$166. A 29% increase adds $16-$48 per vehicle. Across 2 million US BEV sales targeted annually, that is $32-$96 million in additional industry-wide rare earth magnet costs.

Again, cost understates the problem. No magnets means no permanent-magnet synchronous motors. Tesla's Model 3 Performance uses a permanent-magnet rear motor. Ford's F-150 Lightning uses permanent-magnet motors. GM's Ultium platform uses permanent-magnet motors. Some manufacturers have switched-reluctance alternatives (Tesla uses one for its front motor), but those produce less torque density per kilogram. You can build an EV without rare earths. You cannot build the same EV.

Offshore wind turbines. A direct-drive offshore turbine uses approximately 600 kg of NdFeB magnets. Magnet cost per turbine: roughly $33,000 at current prices. A 29% increase adds $9,600 per turbine. The US has a 35 GW offshore wind pipeline. At 15 MW per turbine, that is about 2,333 turbines. Total additional rare earth cost for the entire US offshore pipeline: roughly $22 million.

That sounds manageable until you realize the problem is not cost but availability. If Chinese export licenses do not arrive, those 2,333 turbines do not get built. The 35 GW pipeline becomes a spreadsheet.

The Supply Gap

Global NdFeB magnet demand runs approximately 170,000 tonnes per year. China produces roughly 130,000 tonnes, controlling 90% of refined rare earth output and 75% of NdFeB magnet production, according to IEA data.

What does the rest of the world have?

MP Materials restored US rare earth magnet production in Q1 2025 at a Fort Worth, Texas facility. It was the first US rare earth magnet production in decades. The company is building a $1.25 billion "10X" facility nearby with a target capacity of 10,000 metric tonnes per year. But 10X is not operational yet. Current output is far below capacity. Even at full production, MP covers roughly 7% of global NdFeB demand.

Lynas Rare Earths in Australia produces about 6,000 tonnes of rare earth oxide annually with limited magnet manufacturing capability. Combined rest-of-world magnet capacity maxes out around 15,000-20,000 tonnes per year.

If China stops exporting, the gap is 110,000 tonnes per year. That is 65% of global demand, simply gone. No facility under construction anywhere in the world closes that gap before 2030.

Producer	Capacity (tonnes/year)	Share of Global Demand	Status
China	~130,000	~76%	Exporting under license controls
MP Materials (US)	~10,000 (target)	~6%	Ramping; 10X facility not yet online
Lynas (Australia)	~6,000 REO	~4%	Limited magnet production
Rest of world	~15,000-20,000	~9-12%	Fragmented, mostly processing
Gap if China exits	~110,000	~65%	No replacement before 2030

Strongest Counterargument

China has not actually denied a single rare earth export license. The controls create a licensing requirement, not an outright ban. China needs export revenue from rare earths, and MOFCOM has every incentive to approve licenses for civilian applications while using denial threats as diplomatic leverage. Markets are pricing fear, not reality. MP Materials and Lynas are scaling. Substitution technologies exist: ferrite motors trade rare earth cost for weight and efficiency, and Toyota has prototyped motors using 50% less rare earths. Some manufacturers already use induction or switched-reluctance designs that need zero NdFeB.

All fair points. But the counterargument assumes rational, predictable Chinese trade policy during a period of escalating US-China tension over Taiwan, semiconductors, and tariffs. The FDPR comparison cuts both ways: the US used chip export controls as a geopolitical weapon, and now China has an equivalent lever. Whether they pull it is a political question, not an economic one. Every procurement officer in Detroit, Stuttgart, and Seoul is making the same bet right now. At 29% price increases in eight weeks, the market is not confident the licenses will keep flowing.

What We Do Not Know

Exact US rare earth inventory levels are proprietary. The "5-6 months" figure comes from industry surveys cited by Crux Investor, not audited supply chain data. Actual depletion timelines vary by company, sector, and stockpiling behavior. Defense stockpiles managed by the National Defense Stockpile Center are classified. NdFeB magnet content varies significantly by EV model. Tesla uses switched-reluctance motors with zero rare earths in some configurations. MP Materials has not publicly disclosed its current monthly production rate in tonnes, making it impossible to calculate exactly how much of the gap it fills today versus its 10,000-tonne annual target. And China's extraterritorial licensing provision has no enforcement precedent. Whether customs agencies outside China will actually check compliance is an open question.

Bottom Line

Rare earths are not rare. They are abundant in the Earth's crust. What is rare is the refining and magnet manufacturing capacity outside China. Beijing spent 30 years building that monopoly. MP Materials has been operating for 18 months. The per-unit cost increases from a 29% NdPr spike are manageable, a few thousand dollars on an F-35, a few dozen dollars on an EV. But those calculations assume you can buy the material at all. If stockpiles deplete in April and Chinese licenses do not arrive, the question shifts from "how much does it cost?" to "can you build it?" For every F-35, every EV, and every offshore wind turbine in the pipeline, the honest answer right now is: maybe.