China’s one-year pause on a sweeping package of rare-earth export controls is due to expire on Tuesday, 10 November 2026 — and with two days to go, it is still unclear whether Beijing has extended it or will let the controls snap back.
The pause was set in Announcement No. 70 of 2025, published by China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and the General Administration of Customs on 7 November 2025, which suspended six export-control announcements — Nos. 55, 56, 57, 58, 61 and 62, published on 9 October 2025 — “until 10 November 2026”. The package covered more medium and heavy rare earths, rare-earth equipment and technologies, superhard materials and battery materials, and included an extraterritorial rule under Announcement No. 61 requiring a Chinese export licence for any product made outside China containing Chinese-origin rare earths worth 0.1 per cent or more of its value.
Has Beijing extended it? Two readings
On 28 September 2026, MOFCOM said the US–China trade arrangements agreed in Kuala Lumpur now run to 10 January 2027, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a two-month truce extension. Some trade analysis reads that statement as extending the suspension of the October 2025 controls from 10 November 2026 to 10 January 2027 — a 61-day rollover.
But other specialist analysis says that reading is not supported by the text. The 28 September statement describes the arrangement as a suspension of “some of their respective tariff and non-tariff measures” — and the phrase “rare earth” appears nowhere in it, and neither does “export control”. On that reading, no legal text extending the pause beyond 10 November has been published, and the suspension in Announcement No. 70 still legally ends on Tuesday. As of this morning, no MOFCOM notice amending the suspension had appeared, according to the specialist trackers.
What happens if the controls snap back
If the pause lapses without an extension, the October 2025 package would return to force — including the 0.1 per cent foreign-content rule and the technology catch-all clause under Announcement No. 62 — adding licensing requirements across mining, separation, magnet manufacturing and technology transfer. Analysis citing the International Energy Agency puts downstream production at risk from full enforcement at $6.5 trillion a year across automotive, defence, high-tech and energy.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, one set of controls is not in doubt. The April 2025 licensing regime under Announcement No. 18, covering seven medium and heavy rare earth elements including dysprosium and terbium, was never suspended and remains fully in force. The pause that expires on Tuesday was relief from the second wave, not from the first.
Three outcomes are in play, according to analysis reported by Mining Technology: an extension of the pause, selective reinstatement of some measures, or full reimposition of the October 2025 rules. The United States warned China last week to honour its rare-earth pledge before the deadline, and markets will be watching for a MOFCOM notice on Monday or Tuesday. Until one appears, the honest position is that the extension is claimed by some and unconfirmed by the text.
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