Caught Between China And Trump, Apple Spends $500M On Rare Earth Recycling

Apple has signed a deal with the only active rare earth mine under American control to begin sourcing magnets for its iDevices from the US - but not from the mine itself: Apple's going to recycle. 

Apple announced the multi-year, $500 million deal between it and MP Materials, touting how this not only includes a commitment "to buying American-made rare earth magnets developed at MP Materials," but also includes the establishment of a recycling line at MP's Mountain Pass, California site. 

"We are proud to partner with Apple to launch MP's recycling platform and scale up our magnetics business," MP founder, chairman, and CEO James Litinsky said in a statement.

The deal will work like this: Apple commits to buying rare-earth magnets from MP that are 100 percent recycled, but in order to do that, MP needs a recycling center, which Apple is helping to develop. 

The pair has been working on rare earth recycling technology for "nearly five years," according to statements, and the facilities will be designed to process industrial magnet scrap and end-of-life electronics. Apple and MP have also committed to partnering on further magnet material and performance research.

Apple's rare earth magnet factory is going to be a custom build, too. While it'll be located in Fort Worth, Texas, along with the rest of MP's manufacturing facilities, Cupertino's magnets will be built on "a series of neodymium magnet manufacturing lines specifically designed for Apple products."

"American innovation drives everything we do at Apple, and we're proud to deepen our investment in the US economy," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

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Cook can paint the matter as a positive investment in American manufacturing all it wants, but let's be frank: This deal would probably never have materialized if China hadn't curbed exports of certain rare earth minerals in retaliation against US tariffs. 

It can be argued that it's a win for US manufacturing, but Apple has long insisted that iPhone manufacturing isn't coming back to the US, so for the time being, this is just another item Apple will have to send abroad for device assembly, potentially earning Trump's ire should he turn to gaze upon it.  

With that in mind, there's only one date for the deal mentioned anywhere in Apple's or MP's press releases, and that's the planned 2027 delivery of the first Apple magnets from the new Texas facility with plans to "ramp up to support hundreds of millions of Apple devices." 

Apple hasn't mentioned which devices will be made using US-made magnets, how quickly production will ramp, when it expects to phase out foreign-manufactured rare earth components, or whether US-made components will affect device pricing.

We've asked, but haven't heard back. The story will be updated when new information comes in. ®