Samarium

Korean defense suppliers are reportedly rerouting Chinese-origin critical minerals, including samarium needed for military-grade magnets, through Russia and Arab states as Beijing's tightening export controls threaten missile production. The workaround underscores how exposed South Korea's defense industry remains to China's rare earth restrictions.

This analysis argues that despite India's substantial rare earth reserves, the country lacks the industrial capacity to turn them into high-performance magnets, including the samarium-cobalt types used in defense platforms. Closing that processing gap is framed as essential to both defense self-reliance and India's clean-energy goals.

An Associated Press report profiles US companies such as Phoenix Tailings that are refining rare earth metals from mining waste as Washington races to produce the samarium and other elements needed for weapons-grade magnets domestically. The push follows growing pressure to end reliance on China for defense-critical rare earth magnet supply chains.