Rare earths and strategic metals may sound like a niche topic. They are not. They are one of the clearest examples in today’s world of how supply chains can be turned into geopolitical weapons.
In this episode of Interlinks, Patrick Daly speaks with Louis O’Connor, founder of Strategic Metals Invest Consultancy, about the metals that sit behind the modern economy: semiconductors, smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, defence systems, aerospace and advanced manufacturing. These materials are critical, but the real story is not just where they are mined. It is who controls the refining, processing and supply.
And right now, China holds that leverage.
Patrick and Louis explore how China’s dominance in rare earth and strategic metals processing has given it real coercive power in trade disputes with the United States and its allies. They discuss why Western economies allowed themselves to become dangerously dependent, why political leaders are only now waking up to the scale of the vulnerability, and why reshoring or diversifying this capability will take years, not months.
They also examine which metals are likely to remain under pressure, how stockpiling and resource nationalism are reshaping the market, and why these materials are increasingly being viewed not just as industrial inputs but as a strategic investment asset class.
From a macro-to-micro perspective, this episode gets to the heart of a brutal reality: if you do not control access to critical inputs, you do not control your industrial future. What looks like a trade issue at the geopolitical level quickly becomes a procurement problem, a production problem and, ultimately, a business survival problem.
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