Kerby Anderson

Rare earth minerals are essential to modern life. They are used in everything from electric vehicles to jet engines to medical equipment to the smart phone you are holding. Despite their name, rare earth minerals are not that rare. In fact, the U.S. has quite a supply of them underground. But the raw minerals need to go through a refining process before they can be used as industrial-grade materials.

A few decades ago, the U.S. processed a third of the world’s refined rare earth mineral supply, but now communist China does most of the processing. That is why pundits and politicians are alarmed by the decision by communist China to cut off this country. It is intended to put additional pressure on the Trump administration to end the tariffs on Chinese products.

China’s decision is also a fitting reminder why President Trump wants to bring mining and manufacturing back to the U.S. If Xi Jinping is willing to halt their exports of rare earth minerals over tariffs, what he would do in a war?

We saw some of that when the pandemic hit. We were told to buy masks, but most of those masks were made in China and soon became hard to obtain. We were encouraged to keep taking our medications only to discover how many of them were manufactured in China.

The only U.S. rare earth mine is located in California and has suspended shipping rare earth concentrate to China. In their statement, they said that selling their materials under these tariffs is not commercially rational and is not aligned with America’s national interest.

The U.S. has one rare earth mine and one rare earth processing facility. Perhaps it is time to make America self-sufficient again instead of being dependent on China.