Victoria Coates
Since the COVID pandemic, Americans have had a crash course on the importance of rare earth elements and recognized the unpleasant reality that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a near stranglehold on their mining and processing. Practically everything we manufacture in the modern world, from fighter jets to medical equipment to cameras, now requires some quantity of these materials, and we are almost entirely at the mercy of the PRC for them.
Recognizing that this dependency is a potential national security crisis, President Donald Trump has directed an all-of-government initiative called "Project Vault" to protect the American people from immediate shocks while building up our ability to supply ourselves in the future.
The Chinese regime has shown itself very willing to use its rare earths advantage as blackmail against the United States as well as manufacturing allies such as Japan. At the end of President Trump’s first term, China issued veiled threats about limiting their exports to retaliate for U.S. tariffs on Huawei. Those threats became realities last year as China announced export controls and then outright bans on the export of rare earth elements to foreign militaries. When President Trump issued tariff threats of his own, the PRC backed down, but the scale of our vulnerability was clear.
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