https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/us-acts-to-stop-dependence-on-chinas-rare-earth-minerals/
The Trump administration has finally awakened to the frightening fact, that China controls 80% of America’s rare earth mineral supply — a disturbing reality that the Pentagon wants to end once and for all.
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 minerals critical to the defense industry’s manufacturing of missiles and munitions, hypersonic weapons, and radiation-hardened electronics — as well as consumer electronics like cellphones.
A day prior to being airlifted to Walter Reed hospital, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency in the mining industry — an action aimed at boosting domestic production, Defense News online reported.
Trump also ordered his Cabinet secretaries to study the matter, with an eye toward government grants for production equipment, as well as tariffs, quotas or other import restrictions against China.
The order states that the county’s “undue reliance on critical minerals, in processed or unprocessed form, from foreign adversaries constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
The Trump administration previously identified 35 minerals as both essential and whose supplies are vulnerable to disruption, the report said.
The US imports 80 percent of these elements directly from China, with portions of the remainder indirectly sourced from China through other countries.