US Government Is Doing The Job
Rare earth oxides of gadolinium, praseodymium, cerium, samarium, lanthanum, and neodymium. Photo courtesy of USDA ARS.
According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans with an unfavorable view of China crossed the 50% threshold during the Trump Administration and now for the third year in a row stands at over 80%.
For those who follow the world of high-tech, one of the reasons is China’s leadership in controlling rare earth elements (REEs). From consumer high tech such as cell phones, screens for computers and televisions, appliances, batteries, and digital cameras, to national security uses such as sonar and aircraft disk drives, America is way too reliant on China, which has for several years had more than 95% of the world’s rare earth minerals production.
America was the leader in mining and using REEs until the 1980s, when China became number one in the industry. It did not have to be that way. North America has 3.6 million tons of REEs in the United States and another 14 million tons of REEs in Canada, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Amid all the election-year rhetoric between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump about how to handle China, the Biden Administration has quietly been trying to solve the REE problem here at home.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense Industrial Base Analysis at Sustainment Program provided a $35 million contract for construction of a California processing facility for REEs.
Last October, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration designated two tech hubs designed to strengthening the country’s REE supply chain.
This April, the IRS and Department of the Treasury provided a $58.5 million tax credit to facilitate construction of a facility to manufacture magnets using REEs.
Such news is technical, scientific, boring, and hard to convey. While it doesn’t play into election-year rhetoric on beating China, the Biden Administration is helping create a U.S.-based rare earth and magnetic supply chain that will actually help do so.
William S. Bike is the author of Winning Political Campaigns, a how-to book on all aspects of political campaigning.
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