How Much Rare Earth Metal and Alloy Could America Produce by 2030?

For nearly four decades, Less Common Metals Ltd. (LCM) has been one of the few established rare earth metal and alloy makers outside Asia. When USA Rare Earth, Inc. (Nasdaq: USAR) announced its acquisition of the British company in 2025, it described LCM’s annual capacity as 1,500 metric tons. A later filing put capacity at approximately 2,500 tons. The public disclosures reviewed for this article do not establish LCM’s peak historical annual output, so they do not support a claim that it has never used its full capacity.

A magnet factory on American soil does not, by itself, create an American supply chain. It needs rare earth metals and alloys that meet its specifications, arrive reliably, and can be produced at commercial scale. That middle step is where the country’s largest industrial promises will be tested. The question is which companies can turn announced capacity into material a customer will actually buy.

America’s announcements now reach far beyond that historical scale. The figures require care. Rare earth oxides are converted into metals, which can be made into alloys, then magnets. A ton announced at one stage cannot be added to a ton announced at another. Plant capacity is also different from output made, qualified, and sold.

Potential U.S. producer	Announced annual capacity	Estimated chance of reaching that annual output by 2030
Phoenix Tailings, New Hampshire	200 tons of metals and alloys initially; designed to scale beyond 1,000 tons	60–70% for 200 tons; 25–35% for more than 1,000 tons
LCM / USA Rare Earth, South Carolina	5,000 tons of strip-cast product, metal and alloy at its Blacksburg project	35–45%
MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP), Texas	Producing metal and alloy at Independence; a separate target of 10,000 tons of finished magnets across its expanded U.S. operations	55–65% for the magnet target; no published standalone metal-and-alloy target to score
Australian Strategic Materials Limited (ASM) / Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU | TSX: EFR | ASX: EF2), proposed American Metals Plant	2,000 tons of alloy initially, potentially expanding to 4,000 tons	40–50% for 2,000 tons; 20–30% for 4,000 tons
REalloys Inc. (Nasdaq: ALOY), Ohio	Approximately 500 tons a year of Nd/Pr metal alloys on ramp-up in its published plan	45–55%
JS Link America, Georgia	3,000 tons a year of finished magnets at its announced Columbus plant; no separate U.S. metal-or-alloy target disclosed	45–55% for magnet output
POSCO International / ReElement Technologies Corporation, proposed U.S. complex	3,000 tons initially, rising to 6,000 tons, of separated and purified rare earth products, including oxides; magnet production is proposed later without a published capacity	45–55% for 3,000 tons of refined products; 30–40% for 6,000 tons
POSCO International / Star Group Industrial, proposed U.S. plant	A previously reported 3,000 tons of finished magnets, potentially rising to 5,000 tons; no U.S. site or updated construction timetable verified	15–25% for 3,000 tons of U.S. magnet output

These percentages are editorial estimates, not company forecasts or statistical calculations. They reflect the maturity of each project, its operating experience, financing, feedstock needs, and proposed increase in scale.

POSCO has two U.S. stories that must be kept distinct. In May 2026, POSCO International announced a $200 million venture with U.S. company ReElement Technologies. Its first planned products are refined rare earth materials, including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium oxides. POSCO described a 3,000-ton first phase, expansion to 6,000 tons, pilot production in late 2027 and mass production in 2028. It also described an eventual integrated magnet complex, but published no magnet, metal, or alloy tonnage for that later stage. The 6,000 tons therefore belong in an American refining outlook, not this article’s metal-and-alloy total.

Separately, POSCO International and the Korean magnet producer Star Group Industrial—the company the question calls Korea Star Magnetics—announced plans in 2023 for a U.S. permanent-magnet plant. The reported design was 3,000 tons of magnets a year, expandable to 5,000 tons. The publicly reported proposal named potential states but did not identify a selected site. POSCO’s May 2026 announcement with ReElement does not name Star Group as a partner, so the two proposals should not be treated as one plant or counted twice. Star Group also makes magnets in Korea, and POSCO has announced orders to supply magnets it produces to a North American automaker. Those sales do not establish U.S. manufacture.

JS Link is another Korean company with a more specific U.S. proposal. In September 2025, it announced roughly $223 million for a magnet plant in Columbus, Georgia, designed for 3,000 tons of magnets annually, with operations expected to begin in late 2027. It subsequently signed a nonbinding letter of intent with REalloys to explore a broader North American rare earth magnet platform. Neither announcement provides a separate U.S. metal-or-alloy output figure.

JS Link is also working with Lynas Rare Earths Ltd (ASX: LYC | OTCQX: LYSDY) on a planned 3,000-ton-a-year magnet factory in Kuantan, Malaysia, near Lynas’s processing plant. Lynas has agreed to supply rare earth materials to JS Link’s South Korean and planned Malaysian facilities. Products from those operations could potentially serve buyers outside Asia, including in the United States, but no volume committed to the U.S. market has been disclosed. The announced Lynas–JS Link factory is in Malaysia, not Vietnam.

Vietnam belongs in MP Materials’ historical metal-sourcing account. MP acquired a 49% interest in the owner of Vietnam Rare Earth Company Limited, or VREX, which had a metal-processing plant there. According to MP, VREX paused its metal-processing operations in November 2024, and MP sold its interest in May 2025. MP cofounder and chief operating officer Michael Rosenthal’s reported role in a new Vietnamese metal venture requires a company announcement or comparable documentation before it can be added to a production forecast. A personal connection, if established, would not by itself make that venture an MP investment or commit its output to the U.S. market.

A restrained tally of the four U.S. projects that publish a metal-or-alloy figure—Phoenix, USA Rare Earth/LCM, ASM/Energy Fuels and REalloys—comes to approximately 7,700 tons a year at their stated initial or site-level targets. That adds different metals and alloys and is not a forecast of actual 2030 output. It excludes MP’s undisclosed standalone alloy volume, the magnet capacities announced by JS Link and POSCO/Star Group, and POSCO/ReElement’s oxide capacity. USA Rare Earth’s broader 10,000-ton metal, alloy and strip-casting ambition should not be added to its 5,000-ton South Carolina figure because the plans may overlap

Competitors elsewhere are building, too. In France, LCM proposes a 3,750-ton-a-year metal-and-alloy plant; I estimate a 40–50% chance of reaching that annual output by 2030. In South Korea, ASM’s operating metals plant has 1,300 tons a year of alloy capacity and is expanding toward 3,600 tons; its operating base supports a higher 65–75% estimate. Korean magnet makers including Star Group and JS Link are pursuing additional capacity, while Japan is investing in its own rare earth supply chain. China remains the established producer at far greater scale.

By 2030, the United States may have several meaningful rare earth metal and alloy producers and a larger group of magnet makers. Investors should watch the tons of each product actually made, qualified, and sold at each location. Those results, rather than a sum of unlike announcements, will show how much capacity has become dependable supply.