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Trade barriers and protectionist policies have dramatically reshaped critical mineral markets in 2024, with governments such as China and the US prompting participants to reorganize their supply of secure strategic materials amid mounting geopolitical tensions. The announcement of a 25% US tariff on Chinese imports of critical minerals in September marked a key shift in policy.
The trading relationship between the world’s two largest economies turned increasingly fractious in December when China tightened export controls on gallium and germanium, among other materials, explicitly targeting US buyers.
At the start of the year, China announced it was looking at adding export restrictions to lithium-ion battery materials technologies and lithium production technologies.
This decision threw uncertainty on plans by Chinese battery makers to establish joint ventures to produce electric vehicles (EVs) overseas.
Market participants are bracing for further disruption in 2025 as the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House raises the specter of even broader tariffs that could affect not just Chinese imports but also traditional US allies.
In late November, Trump indicated plans to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China.
Meanwhile, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), expected to take effect in 2026, and other regional policies threaten to add new layers of complexity to global trade flows.
From aerospace materials to battery metals, individual markets have responded differently to these pressures, though common themes of supply chain diversification, strategic stockpiling and a growing emphasis on domestic production have emerged across sectors.
During 2024, indium was among the materials swept up in trade tensions, with the US introducing Section 301 tariffs on China-origin imports despite opposition from some participants in that industry.
Indium prices had a volatile year in 2024. In the first half of the year, prices rose dramatically on speculative activity, partially attributed to concerns about looming export controls on the metal.
After that, further concern was injected into the market when the US added indium to its list of Section 301 tariffs on imports from China.
China is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of indium metal. By the time the tariff came into effect, US buyers had already reduced their reliance on Chinese material due to inflated prices in China’s domestic market, which helped minimize the immediate impact of the tariff introduction. Prices in China skyrocketed around mid-2023 and remained at a premium to ex-China prices until November 2024, Fastmarkets pricing data shows.
Now, indium market participants are looking at the potential for further trade flow disruptions related to geopolitical tensions in 2025.
One North American market participant observed that due diligence requirements in sourcing indium from China are already tigher. They stated that, while on the demand side, consumption for consumer electronics remains an important factor to watch, geopolitical considerations are more important.
Indium is widely used in indium tin oxide (ITO), a key input in LCD screens, and in indium phosphide semiconductor chips.
“Electronics demand remains strong and is boosted by AI, but geopolitical concerns outweigh that,” the market participant said.
In September, the US implementation of a 25% tariff on Chinese material including chromium triggered significant supply chain reorganization and price divergence across regions.
Fastmarkets’ assessment of chromium alumino-thermic 99% min, in-whs Rotterdam started the year at $9,400-11,500 per tonne on January 3, having peaked in 2024 at $10,300-11,885 per tonne in February before falling to $9,000-11,000 per tonne in October amid shifting trade flows.
There is stark contrast among regional tariff policies, with the EU maintaining a 3% third-country duty, even as the US jumped from 0% to 25%.
This has driven European material to flow to the higher-priced US market, where chrome metal began to command premiums of up to 40% over Rotterdam prices.
By mid-November, European exports to the US surged 90% year to date, as suppliers redirected material to capture said premiums.
“The US will take all the European material, so there will be no [domestic production] left for EU industry,” a European trader told Fastmarkets. “Europe will need to buy Chinese or Russian material.”
While market participants report Russian material trading at up to a 20% discount to European material, most have also said they cannot transact with Russian suppliers due to EU banking sanctions blocking payments.
Looking ahead to 2025, market participants are watching political developments.
“We are waiting to see what happens in the [US] on January 20 [with Trump’s inauguration]… that will probably give an indication of the market direction,” a second trader said
“If Trump adds more tariffs [as he threatened], it will likely put pressure on Chinese prices,” they added, referring to US-bound material.
Despite trade uncertainties, sources expressed optimism about fundamental demand in 2025, particularly from the aerospace and nuclear sectors — the main consumers of chrome metal.
“These industries are going in a good direction in 2025. Not only in the UK, many European countries are looking into reviving their nuclear energy production,” the second trader said, adding that airplane manufacturers seem to have strong order books.
Chrome metal is mainly used in the steel industry for producing stainless steel and in the automotive industry to create a protective coating on metal and plastic surfaces.
And industry participants have braced for further supply chain disruption.
While duties and tariffs may help level playing fields in production costs, traders warn about consequences for net importers.
“Duties and tariffs are okay if you’re a net exporter with enough domestic material. But if you’re a net importer, you’re just forcing your own industries to pay more,” the first chromium trader said.
The tantalite market has also been swept into global trade disputes, with 25% tariffs through Section 301 on imports of tantalum from China into the US.
Tantalite is the mineral from which tantalum is produced, which has an important role in the electronics, aerospace and defense sectors.
It is sought after for its use in electronic device capacitors and in the production of superalloys; the density it can bring to alloys lends it military applications.
The intended purpose of the tariffs is to spur the US supply chain away from China, which has the world’s largest refining capacity of tantalite.
But the status quo was considered a risk to US national security.
Global supply of tantalite was expected to come as a by-product of growth in Western Australia’s lithium production.
But weak lithium prices have dampened this source of material, and the resulting potential for additional processing capacity outside of China.
In the meantime, supply on the spot market continues to flow from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, which had the largest production in 2023 at 980 tonnes and 520 tonnes respectively, according to the US Geological Survey.
Some consumers in the US have expressed concern about the use of DRC material due to conflicts in mining areas.
“DRC-origin material could become an issue, but not in the immediate future. Now might be different, with Trump in power,” a trader said.
Concerns over supply have led some consumers to try to substitute other materials, such as niobium, in capacitors and carbides. But the high performance of tantalite means substitutions risk performance loss.
Niobium is not under trade flow controls, and is primarily produced in Brazil, Canada and Australia.
On May 14, rare earth elements (REEs) were included in the Biden administration’s announcement imposing Section 301 tariffs of 25% on all imports of permanent magnets from China starting in 2026. This marked a clear departure from previous US trade policy, which had excluded rare earth magnet supply chains from all Section 301 tariff rounds since 2018.
The permanent magnet market is dominated by two types — sintered neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) rare earth magnets, and hard ferrite magnets (which do not contain rare earths). But there are others, including samarium cobalt rare earth magnets, alnico (aluminum-nickel-cobalt) and bonded NdFeB rare earth magnets.
The trade action appears clearly aimed at the nascent rare earth magnet manufacturing industry in the US. E-Vac, the US subsidiary of German rare earth magnet maker Vacuumschmelze, is building a sintered NdFeB rare earth magnet plant in Sumter, South Carolina, which is scheduled for completion in late autumn 2025. Automaker GM has concluded a binding long-term supply agreement with E-Vac for future production.
GM has also concluded a binding supply agreement with US rare earth producer MP Materials, which is building a magnet plant in Texas.
The US trade sanction followed on from an announcement by China’s Ministry of Commerce on December 21, 2023, prohibiting the export of rare earth magnet technology and equipment.
The export ban covers technology for: rare earth extraction and separation, including ionic leaching (heavy rare earth ores); the production of rare earth metals and alloys; the production of NdFeB, samarium cobalt and cerium magnets; and the production of boric acid and calcium oxide, which are both raw material inputs in the production of NdFeB magnets.
In 2024, low demand in the rare earth magnet space in China contributed to bearish price trends in several rare earth markets.
Fastmarkets’ weekly assessed price for dysprosium oxide 99.5%, fob China was $220-270 per kg on January 2, unchanged from the previous week, but down from $350-380 per kg a year earlier, on January 4, 2024.
The assessed price for neodymium-praseodymium oxide 99% ratio (75:25), fob China was $55-57 per kg on January 2, unchanged from the session a week earlier, but down from the $60-63 per kg on January 4, 2024.
The assessed price for terbium oxide 99.99%, fob China was $765-845 per kg on January 2, unchanged from a week earlier, but down from the $980-1,100 per kg on January 4, 2024.
A big question for 2025 is whether Trump’s proposed blanket tariffs on Chinese imports would apply to rare earth products. Typically, there is a lengthy consultation period during which exemptions for specific products are obtained. If imports of Chinese rare earth products were subject to these tariffs, the market reaction could well be dramatic, because it would stoke longstanding supply security concerns.
The gallium and germanium markets entered 2024 already buffeted by geopolitical tensions. Those markets were among the first to come into the spotlight of the China-US confrontation, when China introduced export controls on the metals, which share a host of critical high-tech applications and which the country produces most of the world’s supply of.
From August 2023, exports of both metals from China required an export license, to be granted on a case-by-case basis. Shipments were initially frozen, but exports of gallium later returned to close to historic levels.
Shipment volumes for germanium remained relatively more suppressed, but market participants pointed to generally tight supply in China as contributing to that.
Ironically, previous geopolitical tensions helped to mitigate the impact of the export control. When Trump introduced a 25% tariff on imports of China-origin gallium into the US during his first term, consumers responded by stockpiling material. Those stockpiles, market participants theorized to Fastmarkets, helped supply critical industries with the metal.
Earlier in December, China announced it would be tightening export controls on both metals, explicitly prohibiting direct exports to the US for the first time.
In 2025, market participants in gallium and germanium will be looking warily toward the return of a Trump presidency.
His unpredictability, and the suggestion that he could introduce sweeping tariffs on not only imports from China, but also target allies like Canada, have caused concern.
With its primary indium and germanium dioxide production, as well as its secondary gallium production, Canada is one of very few countries that can supply the US with all three critical metals.
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