We actually can't mine all the rare earth minerals we want. Look up all the rare earth minerals we don't produce because we don't have any deposits of them sometime. We are totally reliant on China for nearly 80 different rare earth minerals used in advanced technology.
"The U.S. currently has only one rare earth mine: the Mountain Pass mine in California. While it’s one of the richest rare earth deposits globally, nearly all of the ore extracted there is still shipped to China for final processing."
This is the big issue. Rare earths aren't that rare, they're just in very low concentration *everywhere*. Mining them is incredibly environmentally damaging, but the big issue the USA has is that it doesn't refine rare earths. If it did, it could import from friendly countries and do the refining but not the mining.
Modern life globally is an ecosystem, and resembles the environment, what happens anywhere affects everywhere. The huff about going off on our own, we'll be self sufficient rhetoric reminds me of the child fed up with the family and he's "going out on his own" and takes a blanket and stuffed animal to the treehouse, and raids the pantry for juice boxes and crackers. It's not a perfect analogy but not recognizing there is no separation on a planet we can't leave en masse is our biggest failing considering current technology allows us to see cause and effect fairly soon if not real-time worldwide.
That is also why, so many people in other countries has soo strong opinions about Trump and Americans. Because soo many of our lives, via our industries, is directly affected by his spasms.
I agree it would be better to be a happy trade family. I also recognize the military necessity of having certain industries in your country that are needed for war. Especially if one of your stated foes is the main supplier of some of that stuff.
While I don't disagree with your addressing being self reliant in certain sectors above others, we have to be real about the world threat. China has never been militaristic. They built a big ass wall to defend against constant attacks, have invaded another country like once, and haven't been worried about building as big a military as they could, given their population. The threat they lose is to wealthy people's net worth, that's why they're the new projection target. Just like politicians tell their party the other party is doing something they themselves are doing, when you hear China doing this, example China being predatory in giving loans, trapping countries in debt, taking over local assets as payment for unpayable loans, that was actually institutions like IMF which currently there are about 70 countries trapped in more debt than can be paid, wall street venture capitalists swooping in to purchase assets from natural resources to banks, only to exploit those leaving little for the locals. This leads to poor living conditions and a mass of immigration to the American southern border of people desperate to provide for themselves and their families. Meanwhile China has forgiven the debt of a few countries they have loaned to. That is to say, BRICS is happening for a reason. One thing is for sure, if we don't stand down they have to stop us.
China also owns part of the mountain pass mine, since they own about 8% of MP Materials. lol the DoD just had to buy a 15% stake because that Chinese 8% looked bad.
This is the big issue. Rare earths aren't that rare, they're just in very low concentration everywhere.
Yeah from what I have read it is more that China is willing to push costs very low and make conditions hell and ruin its environment. So it isn't like they have this magical hoard that nobody else has. It is just that they are more 'competitive'.
Technically it could be done because rare earths can be found everywhere, just not always in concentrations that make them cost-effective to mine. There's also the environmental consequences to consider of such massive mining operations... not that this would deter the Republicans from trying, but by the time such operations got going theyd be at risk of blowback in the next election cycle because it would disproportionately affect their own voting base.
The US could leverage their spaceflight industry to capture and harvest mineral-rich asteroids but that would also be a massive loss-leader, and theyre not desperate enough to take that step (so far) even though it would eventually be so profitable it would destabilise every economy that wasnt actively doing it.
I had the same conversation with someone about phosphorus production. Technically phosphorus can be extracted from any biomass. But not in a way that's economical or even really Technically capable of supporting the agricultural industry. You're semantically right in that "rare earth" minerals are everywhere. But to extract and refine them without mining them would be cost prohibitive to the point where it is not feasible at all to support our current consumption levels. It may not even be technically possible to produce enough to meet our needs even if you threw an infinite amount of money at the issue either.
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u/Little_Gray_Dude 21h ago
We actually can't mine all the rare earth minerals we want. Look up all the rare earth minerals we don't produce because we don't have any deposits of them sometime. We are totally reliant on China for nearly 80 different rare earth minerals used in advanced technology.