BREAKTHROUGH: How America Can Supply 85% of the World's Rare Earths
Fifteen years ago, America imported most of its oil. Now it's the world's biggest exporter. It can do the same with Rare Earth Elements, wiping out China's dominance (and environmental nightmare).
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by Teresa Mull
April 24, 2025
Give a country rare earth elements and it’ll have fighter jets, missiles and warships for a day. Force a country to extract and process its own rare earth elements and it’ll be safe from relying on countries run by unstable dictators forever.
Such is President Trump’s sensible line of thinking as he keeps up America’s trade war with China. As China imposed export licensing restrictions on seven rare earth elements, or REEs, last week, Trump signed an Executive Order “launching an investigation into the national security risks posed by US reliance on imported processed critical minerals and their derivative products.” The administration is now pursuing a deal to procure REEs from Ukraine.
REEs are necessary for the continuation of modern life as we know it; they’re used in everything we love – computers, smartphones, magnets, batteries – as well as those aforementioned defense weapons. Per his order, Trump “recognizes that an overreliance on foreign critical minerals and their derivative products could jeopardize US defense capabilities, infrastructure development, and technological innovation.” Yet the economy and defense sector are not the only facets of US life that stand to gain from lessening our reliance on other nations. The environment also stands to be a big winner in the scramble for rare earth elements.
Prior to 1980, the United States led the world in REE production with California’s Mountain Pass Mine. It was then, reports mining.com, that:
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