China is reportedly open to still approve rare earth licenses to Europe, CNBC reports

Beijing's use of rare earth and critical mineral export licensing as a trade lever is by now an established pattern: controls are announced broadly, then eased selectively through case-by-case approvals, with the licensing regime itself functioning as the durable instrument rather than an outright ban. In past episodes of this kind the sequence has run from restriction, to supply-chain alarm and lobbying from downstream manufacturers, to partial carve-outs for favoured counterparties, which is what this headline resembles. The distinction worth drawing is between approvals granted and approvals pending: the licensing bottleneck operates through delay and uncertainty as much as through denial, so the pace and volume of actual clearances matters more than stated openness. Europe's position as a bloc seeking exemptions has historically depended on the broader state of bilateral ties, and selective approval has tended to track parallel negotiations on other trade frictions. Worth watching is whether approvals materialise in practice, whether they extend to magnet-grade material or only raw oxides, and whether Washington receives parallel treatment, since differential licensing has been the tell in comparable episodes.