Opinion

China’s grip on rare-earth magnets could crush US drone industry before it grows

Trump's executive order demands American-made drones, but magnets are key and they come from China

By Jonathan Rowntree Fox News

Published June 5, 2026 7:00am EDT

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Modern battlefields consume drones the way 20th-century conflicts consumed artillery shells: by the thousands, every day, with no end in sight. Ukraine built 5 million drones last year. Russia launched 805 in a single night against Ukrainian cities. In this kind of warfare, victory doesn’t go to the side with the most sophisticated weapon but to the defense industrial base that continues manufacturing at scale. And production, in the age of drone warfare, starts with a permanent magnet. Every motor in every drone flying over Ukraine and Iran today contains at least one. China makes almost all of them.

President Donald Trump's June 6, 2025, executive order on drone dominance directed every federal agency toward American-made platforms and gave the industrial base a clear demand signal to organize around. Traditional acquisition timelines have been compressed from years to months, with vendors competing in field evaluations........

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