Dear Income traders,
Nobody bans imports in a market they dominate.
Last month the FCC added foreign-made humanoid robots and four-legged robot dogs to its Covered List. That list decides which electronics clear the authorization they need before anyone imports or sells them in the U.S. Machines already approved can stay, but new foreign models can't come in.
Washington called it national security. Look at the hardware and it also looks like a country that got lapped.
The whole AI fight has been about the brain: whose model reasons best. We're ahead there, and even the firms counting Chinese shipments say American and European labs lead on robot intelligence.
But a robot that can reason and can't lift its own arm is an expensive lawn ornament. The next leg of this isn't a smarter chatbot. It's software that can pick something up, and the second you go physical the contest stops being about algorithms and starts being about atoms.
So follow the atoms. Roughly 14,500 humanoids shipped worldwide in 2025, and Chinese firms accounted for about 90 percent of them. Unitree shipped more than 5,500 units, AgiBot shipped about 5,168, and Tesla, Figure and Agility each shipped around 150.
The gap widened this year. Global shipments hit 19,100 units in the first half of 2026, up 272 percent, and China took 97 percent of that. AgiBot alone moved 8,400 units in six months, more than Unitree shipped in all of 2025.
Price says the same thing. You can order a Unitree G1 today for about $13,500. Tesla's Optimus isn't available to anyone at any price, with a target of $20,000 to $30,000 whenever it finally ships.
Now here's the piece nobody puts in the keynote. Every joint in these machines runs on a high-torque motor, and every one of those motors needs rare-earth magnets. Morgan Stanley pegs the neodymium-praseodymium content at roughly 1.3 kilograms per humanoid, about double what an EV motor uses.
China refines about 91 percent of the world's magnet rare earths and makes about 94 percent of the magnets. Beijing has required export licenses on seven of those elements, and on the magnets containing them, since April 2025. It only suspended the tougher October package, the one that reaches foreign-made goods with Chinese content, and that suspension expires November 10.
So don't try to pick which robot wins. Own the input every robot has to buy, which is the refining and magnet capacity the West is racing to rebuild.
MP Materials (MP) is the flagship. The Pentagon put a 10-year floor of $110 per kilogram under its NdPr and committed to buying everything the new magnet plant produces. Second quarter revenue came in at $108.5 million, up 89 percent, plus another $17.6 million from that price protection.
It isn't a clean story. MP still posted a GAAP loss last quarter and hasn't solved where it sources dysprosium and terbium, the heavy rare earths that high-temperature magnets require. USA Rare Earth (USAR) commissioned its first Stillwater magnet line in March and is ramping toward a 600-ton annual run rate by year end.
I'll be looking at these names for Turbo Income trades this weekend. Tap this link to join.
Here for a good time AND a long time,
Hans