Brazil opens first rare earths facility to support US supply chain efforts

Brazil just became the most important country in the Western Hemisphere for a group of minerals most people can’t pronounce. The nation’s Serra Verde Pela Ema project, its first operational large-scale rare earths mine, is now the centerpiece of Washington’s strategy to loosen China’s stranglehold on elements essential to everything from electric vehicles to fighter jets. The facility produces all four critical magnet rare earth elements: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. No other non-Asian operation currently does that, which makes Serra Verde less of a mining project and more of a geopolitical chess piece. The money trail from Washington to Goiás The US government is not being subtle about its interest here. The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) extended a $565 million loan to help ensure that Serra Verde’s output flows to the US and allied nations rather than to the highest bidder on the open market. That loan turned out to be just the appetizer. In April 2026, USA Rare Earth announced an acquisition deal for the project valued at approximately $2.8 billion, backed by US government financing. On top of that, the Department of War’s Economic D...