BS, we depend on rare earth minerals because we need to. Forced to find alternatives, the US Economy will find a way to replace them. China, however, cannot survive the loss of the US Market.
Rare earth metals are used for things like specialty alloys, which are used for all sorts of things, both military and otherwise. You can't just "find alternatives" for those -- instead, you need to find a different source, or come up with different alloys (a much more difficult task).
FWIW, Africa used to be the main source for those metals, along with Russia. So China isn't really the only source -- they're just the ones who currently have market share.
“BS, we depend on rare earth minerals because we need to.”
Well, we can certainly dump the hybrid cars that are helping drain the supply with their batteries.