China’s export controls on rare earth minerals have reduced shipments of yttrium, a material used in LEDs, microwave filters and solid‑state lasers for datacenter hardware, by about 75 percent this year compared with 2025 according to IEEE Spectrum. The licensing requirement obliges companies to obtain a permit before shipping any product that contains Chinese‑sourced rare earths and a policy review is scheduled for November. The Chinese government imposed export restrictions in April 2025 as a retaliatory measure against U.S. trade tariffs and later expanded the rules to require licensing for all exports of those minerals. A second wave of restrictions that would have added erbium to the licensing list was suspended in November 2025 for twelve months. China mines about 90 percent of the world’s yttrium and processes all of the ore into usable forms such as yttrium oxide while also supplying all erbium oxide making it the sole source for these elements in the IT sector according to IEEE Spectrum. The U.S. Department of Defense has committed $750 million to secure rare earth supplies for magnets from a production site in central Brazil. The Department of Energy has allocated $500 million to seven projects focused on critical mineral processing battery manufacturing and recycling. In February the United States signed agreements with representatives of 54 countries at the Critical Minerals Ministerial meeting and launched Project Vault a strategic reserve funded by the Export‑Export Bank up to $10 billion. The November decision on whether to maintain or lift the licensing requirements will test the effectiveness of these supply chain initiatives and will depend on the outcome of a planned summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping.