With the increased exchange of the rare earth products among various countries, an international rare earth trade network is formed, reshaping the division of the global rare earth supply chain and the geopolitical pattern. By constructing a trade network for the global rare earth resource-based products, functional materials, and final products trade network in 2000, 2010, and 2017, the global trade flow characteristics of the rare earth resources and the trade relations between major countries or regions are comprehensively shown. It is shown that the rare earth network structure is rather complicated, with heterogeneous trade relations, status, and divisions of countries. The main findings are as follows:(1) The majority of trade relationships and trade amounts are highly concentrated in some critical countries, the supply of the whole trade network would fail, once the critical countries are in trouble; (2) China, the United States, Japan, and other Pacific Rim countries occupy a dominant position in the trade network of the rare earth resource-based products and functional materials; However, Denmark, Germany, and other European countries always occupy a dominant position in the trade network of the final products; (3) The developing countries (e.g., China) only occupy the dominant position in the trade network for the front and middle end products in the rare earths supply chain and play the role of the resource supplier and the intermediate product production factory. Therefore, it is suggested that China should take the following actions:(1) relax the restrictions of the rare earth raw materials import policy and diversify the sources of the rare earth raw materials; (2) increase the export tariff of the low-end functional rare earth materials; (3) encourage the rare earth enterprises to produce and develop the final high-tech and high value-added products.

rare earth elements  /  critical materials  /  international trade