Kevin Chen
America’s national security is imperiled by its dependence on China for the rare earth elements (REEs) essential to artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems, and precision-guided weapons. Without secure access to refined REEs, even the most sophisticated algorithms and defense platforms become inoperable.
China’s dominance across the REE supply chain — from supply to mining to refining — creates a single point of failure for US military readiness. In a crisis, Beijing could weaponize these choke points, halting production of the AI-enabled drones, electronic warfare systems, and missiles that underpin US deterrence in theaters from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.
Rebuilding A Domestic Supply Chain
Washington should treat REEs not as commercial commodities but as strategic national assets. A bipartisan path forward lies in the vertical integration within US borders of domestic mining, separation, refining, and magnet alloying capacity. MP Materials’ operations in California offer a prototype for such an effort.
Based in Las Vegas, MP Materials owns and operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, the only active rare earth mine and processing site in North America. According to company analysts, MP is working to expand its capacity downstream to domestically produce separated oxides and permanent magnets. It recently struck a major public–private partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) to accelerate the construction of a completely domestic US rare earth magnet supply chain. This 10X Facility will help ensure domestic magnet manufacturing, expand heavy rare earth separation, and establish long-term price floor guarantees that reinforce US independence in the REE chain.
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