American Minerals Company

China can close the gate.

Fourteen minerals America can't build without are refined mostly in China, and Beijing now licenses exports of almost all of them. We're building everything from the mine to the strategic reserve, outside that gate.

China's expanded rare-earth, magnet and graphite controls return unless the truce is renewed.
China's ban on gallium, germanium and antimony exports to the US returns.
See the data What we're building
History Scheduled: rules as written Optimistic: some suspensions renewed China export gate, 0 = open · 10 = banned · 14 minerals, market-value weighted

How we got here

We were the arsenal. Now they are.

In 1945 the Allies made most of the world's steel, aluminum, copper and oil. Today the share has flipped. In the metals the 21st century runs on, China and its partners hold the refineries, and the gate along with them.

Production share of critical WWII commodities. Allies fell from most of world steel, aluminum, copper, oil, lead, chromium and nickel in 1935–45 to under a third today; the Axis / New Axis share rose to half or more.
Production and refining share of 21st-century commodities. The New Axis holds roughly 80% of rare earths, 100% of gallium, 80% of germanium, over 90% of antimony and tungsten, and close to 90% of graphite; Allied shares are small.
Global steel production share, 1820 to today. The US peaked near 60% around 1920 and 1945 and is now about 4%; China rose from zero after 1950 to about 55%.
4%

The US share of world steel today, down from nearly 60% in 1945. China makes more than half.

From “The Arsenal of Autocracy,” Campbell Ramble, Sep 2025 →
129×

What a Western buyer pays for yttrium oxide, against the price inside China.

When the gate closes, the world splits into two prices. Chinese manufacturers buy at home. Everyone else pays whatever material gets out. The gap is widest exactly where China holds the most.

14×Gallium
7.5×Terbium oxide
6.8×Dysprosium oxide
4.2×Tungsten APT
2.8×Bismuth
1.6×Antimony
Western quote ÷ China domestic price ex-VAT, Sep–Oct 2026. Against China's export price, yttrium is about 24×. Fastmarkets, Argus, SMM and S&P via public trade press.

Inside and outside

Two prices for the same metal.

Inside China, manufacturers buy at the domestic price. Outside, buyers pay for what gets through the gate. Red is the price inside China, blue the price outside. Until 2024 they moved together. Now they don't.

Inside ChinaOutside China

Today, US dollars per kilogram (log scale)

Antimony, 2006–2026, US dollars per tonne

Customs value per tonne: China exports vs US imports, 2010–2025

Today: public trade-press quotes of Fastmarkets, Argus, SMM, S&P, Benchmark and CREIA, Jun–Oct 2026. China domestic prices exclude 13% VAT. Samarium's outside price is China's export price; scandium has no public outside quote; graphite's outside quote is mid-2025. Antimony: USGS annual price, UN Comtrade unit values, Fastmarkets and 100ppi quotes. Customs: UN Comtrade HS6 value ÷ weight, which mixes grades. Read it for direction, not level. Full sources on the data page.

The fourteen

Every one of them is gated.

Each tile shows how shut China's export gate is today for supply bound to the US, and how much more a Western buyer pays than a Chinese one. The red bar is the gate. Click any tile for the history, the projections and the sources.

Gate scores are our judgment of each control on a 0–10 scale. The method, sources and full history are in the data.

What we're building

Everything from the mine to the strategic reserve.

The West has mines and it has demand. What it lacks is the layer in between. China runs that layer as one system: mine, refinery, merchant, customer. In the West the pieces are scattered and nobody connects them. We're building the connection.

China
  1. Mine
  2. Refiner
  3. Merchant
  4. Customer
One integrated operating layer
The West today
  1. Mine
  2. ?
  3. Processor
  4. ?
  5. Customer
Scattered assets, no connective layer

  1. Source

    Metal already in American and allied ground and scrap that nobody recovers today. Thirty-three operating western mines sit on ore carrying antimony that almost none of them recover.

  2. Convert

    Mines come online faster than refineries. We secure the conversion capacity that turns concentrate into usable metal.

  3. Certify

    Every lot traced from the ground up, so manufacturers can show where it came from when the 2027 sourcing rules arrive.

  4. Reserve

    Compliant inventory held ready, so supply doesn't stop when the gate closes. A strategic reserve, privately run.

  5. Deliver

    To the makers of magnets, chips, batteries and munitions, alongside the public programs now financing the chain.