U.S. efforts to break China's dominance of the rare earths market and to drive investment in its own industry have moved up a gear with a Washington-backed plan to create a separate, higher pricing system.

In May EU leaders said they were ready to “work hand in hand” with China to deal with “common challenges”. But the Europeans’ short-lived friendliness was as much an attempt to manipulate the Americans as it was an attempt to woo the Chinese,

Low environmental standards helped China become the world’s low-cost producer of rare earths, but Beijing was also focused on helping the industry.

China's exports growth beat expectations in June as businesses continued to divert shipments to non-U.S. markets while shunning the U.S. despite a tariff reprieve.

While the area has traditionally been renowned for livestock, today the region embodies the stranglehold that China has over the supply of rare earth elements, as it is home to one of the world’s largest reserves of rare earth elements,

The continent wants to reduce the risks of depending so heavily on China for the valuable minerals. The question is how.

The U.S. is opening its first new Wyoming coal mine in decades to extract both coal and critical rare earth metals, inching the country closer to the Trump administration’s energy independence goals.