USA Rare Earth, Inc. Class A Common Stock 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Good afternoon and welcome to USA Rare Earth's 2026 second quarter earnings conference call. With me today are Barbara Humpton, Chief Executive Officer, and Rob Steele, Chief Financial Officer. Following Barbara and Rob's updates across our business and quarterly results, we will open the lines for Q&A. I would like to remind participants that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to the press release and our SEC filings for a discussion of risk factors. Listeners who do not have a copy of the press release or associated presentation may access these documents by visiting the investor relations section of the company's website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Barbara.

Thank you, J.B. Let me start with the progress we made this quarter as a company and the vision we have going forward. USA Rare Earth is building the global leader in rare earths. Every link from the rock in the ground to the finished magnet and beyond across three continents. These materials sit inside the motors, servos, semiconductors, aircraft, robotics, medical devices, and defense systems a modern economy runs on. For a generation, the capability to produce them has been consolidated almost entirely into one country. We're putting it back into allied hands, and we're doing it now. This ranks among the most vital industrial projects underway today, and I want to be clear about our ambition. We intend to lead it. For decades, price governed this industry because availability was assumed. Availability, or lack thereof, is what governs the rare earth industry now.

Once a company understands what an interruption will do to its production line, its commitments, and its business model, availability drives every decision that follows. The consequence of being wrong is existential. The Chinese government's recent export restrictions on Western companies, including USA Rare Earth, crystallize that risk. For us, they reinforce why this company exists. For the rest of the industry, they're a wake-up call. More and more companies have now concluded that single source dependency on a strategic competitor, one that has become a geostrategic adversary, is a risk they can no longer tolerate. That conclusion is driving companies to rebuild their supply chains around long-term, reliable, and trustworthy sources. A two-tier market is emerging. A China tier and a new non-China tier. The two price differently, contract differently, and behave differently.