Rare earth stocks surge on report the US will launch a $12 billion critical minerals stockpile

Rare earth and critical minerals stocks are soaring as Bloomberg reports that President Donald Trump will soon launch a $12 billion initiative to stockpile critical minerals.

Think the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but for the likes of gallium, cobalt, and lanthanum.

MP Materials, USA Rare Earth, Critical Metals, NioCorp, and United States Antimony Corp. are all soaring in premarket trading on this report.

The purpose of this project, reportedly dubbed “Project Vault,” is to secure a sufficient domestic supply of these strategically important materials for the private sector. Three commodities trading houses and more than a dozen companies (including Google, General Motors, and GE Vernova) are said to be participating in this venture.

Here’s how the mechanics would reportedly work:

“Under the arrangement, companies that make an initial commitment to purchase materials at a specified inventory price later — and pay some up-front fees — will be able to present Project Vault with a shopping list of preferred materials they need.

The project, in turn, will seek to procure and store the materials, with the manufacturers charged a carrying cost for the expenses associated with interest on the loan and holding the elements.

Manufacturers will be allowed to draw down their material stash as long as the firms replenish them. In the case of a major supply disruption, they will be able to access all of it, the officials said.”

The Trump administration has invested in many critical minerals stocks, most recently USA Rare Earth, in a bid to bolster North American output. China currently dominates the production and processing of many strategically important minerals, which are used in everything from fluorescent lights and EV batteries to semiconductors. Access to rare earths was a particularly contentious issue as the US and China ironed out a trade agreement late last year.