Predatory Pricing: How the Chinese Communist Party Manipulates Global Mineral Prices To Maintain Its Dominance

Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Congressman Zach Nunn (R-IA) have written an op-ed in National Review about China’s monopoly of critical minerals and its threat to everyday Americans. The op-ed follows the committee’s report, Predatory Pricing: How the Chinese Communist Party Manipulates Global Mineral Prices To Maintain Its Dominance and a subsequent hearing (below) of the same name.

Executive Summary

Given the dire implications of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) unprecedented restrictions on critical minerals exports and recent establishment of a comprehensive rare earths export control regime, the Select Committee sought to better understand PRC’s stranglehold on mining and refining capabilities. As described in this report, the PRC government, under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has engaged in a coordinated, decades‐long scheme to control different critical minerals and bend the global market to their will. The PRC’s domination of critical minerals stems from its view of minerals in geostrategic terms, not as typical market commodities. Former PRC paramount leader Deng Xiaoping captured the PRC’s strategic view of rare earths with the 1992 quote “There is oil in the Middle East, there is rare earth in China.”1

This approach boils down to a difference between the perspectives that each society holds on commerce. The United States has a long tradition of allowing businesses to compete in the marketplace largely free from government direction. The PRC does not. The United States desires a world where minerals are an economic resource addressed by businesses in the marketplace and local communities where these resources are extracted. The PRC does not. The United States believes in fair competition between companies. The PRC does not.

On October 9, 2025, the PRC Ministry of Commerce [中华⼈⺠共和国商务部] issued a global export licensing regime for rare earth items.2 That step did not happen overnight — it was the culmination of policies, investments, and maneuvers built over decades. By asserting direct control over the entire rare‐ earth value chain anywhere in the world that contains even a small amount of PRC rare earths, the world bore witness to Xi Jinping, the CCP’s General Secretary, actualizing Deng’s vision and putting those words into action. In turn, the CCP’s decision to place global supply chains in grave peril must serve as our own American call to action.

Before discussing the PRC’s role in critical minerals, we wanted to confirm the terminology we will use in this report. The term “critical minerals” refers to those minerals identified by the United States Geological Survey as those minerals essential to the economy and national security of the United States and have supply chains vulnerable to disruption. 3 These minerals include elements identified as rare earth elements, but rare earth elements are not the same as critical minerals. For purposes of this report, rare earth elements include the elements identified as being a part of that group.

In producing this report, the Select Committee investigated the CCP’s commodity market manipulation in minerals critical to the American economy and our national security. After reviewing Chinese language reports, news articles, and government documents, the Select Committee determined that the RC does not adhere to the global norms on market access to critical minerals. While the Select Committee cannot compel the CCP to cease its market manipulation, we can shed light on it and make the CCP answer for its conduct. Our investigation into critical minerals is ongoing, but we make the following interim findings:

Finding 1:

The PRC government subsidizes its state mining champions with tens of billions of dollars including zero‐interest‐rate loans to support its global acquisition of mining assets. One analysis shows the PRC government provided roughly $57 billion of aid and subsidized credit for minerals projects around the world. Combined with this massive investment in supply, the PRC represents the largest consumer of minerals, making U.S. and allied price discovery nearly impossible.

Finding 2:

The PRC legal framework governing mineral price reporting gives Beijing the ability to raise and lower prices to favor its economic and national security interests. This legal framework effectively makes it illegal to publish prices that deviate from the PRC government’s wishes.

Finding 3:

PRC law effectively prohibits “objective” price reporting by Price Reporting Agencies and international exchanges, including the “London” Metals Exchange. PRC law makes it illegal to “manipulate” a price index, but when the government decides what constitutes “manipulation,” prices must follow government direction. The reach of the PRC’s market information providers and clout of its refiners means this government intervention ripples through global markets.

Finding 4:

The PRC government has aggressively expanded its international footprint for Price Reporting Agencies, which propagate the PRC’s manipulated prices. As the information center of gravity shifts to the PRC, U.S. and allied market participants will be discouraged from making investments because prices will reflect the PRC government’s will, not fundamental economic forces.

Finding 5:

The PRC government maintains a chokehold over midstream refining relying at least partially on subsidies. While the PRC cannot control where mineral deposits are located, it can control where resources are refined.

Finding 6:

The PRC developed a set of tools to control domestic mineral prices. These tools included intimidating domestic producers into ensuring that prices went the direction the government wanted. These tools would prove critical to controlling critical mineral prices.

Finding 7:

The PRC government engaged in a decades‐long strategy to dominate the rare earth supply chain. This strategy involved luring in mostly western companies to collaborate with PRC companies, then selling products significantly below existing market participants’ prices to put competition out of business. Finally, after establishing its dominance, the PRC wielded this market clout as a geopolitical weapon.

Finding 8:

PRC rare earth exchanges are inherently untrustworthy because they are controlled by state‐owned rare earth producers. For example, China Northern Rare Earths is the largest shareholder of the new Baotou Rare Exchange, while also participating in the rare earths marketplace.

Finding 9:

Beginning in March 2022, the PRC government engaged in a whole‐ of‐government effort to manipulate rare earth prices. The PRC government held two meetings, and the price of rare earths fell immediately following these meetings. This aligns with the PRC’s goal of keeping rare earth prices low to ensure western participants do not enter the market.

Finding 10:

The PRC engaged in a whole‐of‐government effort to dominate global lithium production. Each time the PRC government indicated lithium’s importance, PRC mining firms increased their acquisition of lithium assets. This acquisition spree means PRC miners are expected to continue dominating lithium production through 2030.

Finding 11:

The PRC maintains ownership or control in four of the top five lithium mines projected to drive global lithium supply. The PRC also engaged in acquisition of upstream lithium assets to ensure continued control over the supply chain.

Finding 12:

Starting in 2021, the PRC government engaged in a coordinated effort to artificially depress global lithium prices that had the effect of preventing the emergence of an America‐focused supply chain. Each time lithium prices rose, the PRC government took action to bring lithium prices back down