When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping they met Last month, the White House announced that China was committed to reviewing the restrictions it had imposed on rare earth exports. The first item on that list was an unusual choice: yttrium. Neither neodymium nor dysprosium (the usual protagonists of the debate about permanent magnets); a rare earth that until recently barely appeared in geopolitical risk reports.
This surprise has an explanation. The focus of the West’s dependence on China in the field of rare earths has been concentrated for years on permanent magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines and defense systems. Yttrium operates in a different segment. And it is the essential component of the thermal barrier coatings that protect the blades of gas turbines and jet engines. Without that coating, those blades would melt.
The US depends almost 100% on yttrium imports, and almost all of them come from China. Despite the conversations that these two countries have had, foreign trade data confirm that Xi Jinping’s commitment has not transformed into a real flow. Chinese yttrium oxide exports collapsed after April 2025 controls; they resumed with a dropper starting in October; recorded a specific peak in March 2026, and, in May, China did not export yttrium to the US. Not a single gram.
A vulnerability without a substitute
GE Vernova, one of the world’s largest gas turbine manufacturers, relies on yttrium coating to make its machines work. The same goes for jet engine manufacturers. Unlike neodymium, which is mined and refined in Australia, Canada or Europe, yttrium lacks a alternative supply chain consolidated outside China. For this reason, dependence on the West is structural, and not circumstantial.
The problem was aggravated by the timing of the embargo. The April 2025 checks coincided with the data center boom of artificial intelligence (IA) in the US. The investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates that energy demand of data centers will double before 2027and a good part will come from gas turbines. In this scenario, China not only restricted access to a critical material for the defense industry: it did so just when the infrastructure that fuels the AI race was beginning to scale.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce not only maintains controls, but is tightening them
More than a year after the embargo, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce is not only maintaining controls, but tightening them. Beijing has put in place measures to block the rerouting of rare earths through third countries, the mechanism that some Western companies had resorted to to circumvent the restrictions. The remaining window is closing.
The lesson that yttrium leaves us transcends this chemical element. And the most dangerous vulnerabilities in the critical technology supply chain are not always the most visible. In this context, neodymium attracted attention, and yttrium went unnoticed until it stopped reaching the West. Then, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s meeting made headlines. But the important thing is that May data generate doubts. Many doubts.
Image | Kian Turbo Tec
More information | Volt Insight
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