Trump: Break Chinese, Russian stranglehold over mineral supplies

Washington Examiner ^ | Dec 20, 2017 | John Siciliano

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

America HAS the minerals.

Until President Trump came along, the dems, RINOs, and their environmentalist puppet master lacked the political win to mine these minerals.

[roadcat]

That’s only part of the solution. Rare earth minerals are rare indeed.

No, they're not rare at all. Rare earth minerals are known as lanthanides ad actinides, and they are abundant materials on Earth. For example lanthanum, the first of these minerals, is more than three times as abundant in the earth's crust as lead. Cerium is twice as abundant as lanthanum. Most of the rare earth minerals are similar and interchangeable and are found in the same ores.

We have rare earth mines in the U.S.A., and unfortunately environmentalist groups were active in shutting them down. We have them, we just need to reopen them.

[Moltke]

Sounds like there’s the first adult in the White House since Reagan. America should rejoice.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Trump: Break Chinese, Russian stranglehold over mineral supplies

Step one - No matter how big the bribe to the clintons and 0bama - absolutely no sales of uranium from our strategic stockpile.

[GOPJ]

LOL - you do know we buy a LOT OF STUFF from the the world, right? I doubt some of the smaller countries want to mess with us - and as far as the Chinese are concerned? They’re a ‘First World Country’ now... they’ll work things out with us. Just like we will work things out with them.

[Architect of Avalon]

This is another addition to the list of things that past Presidents should have done, but didn’t, because they didn’t actually care about putting America first.

[miniTAX]

“Rare earth minerals are rare indeed.”

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“Rare earth” is a historical term and is in fact a misnomer. Check it out, rare earths are everywhere and not rare at all!
The US was one of the biggest producer of rare earths, before the whole industry was killed by environmental regulations, like many other ressource industries (eg lumber, coal). It’s a capital and technology intensive industry, not labor intensive, so even without strategic and military consideration, it still makes perfect sense to revive it.

[ak267]

There was once a time decades ago when the US lead in production of rare earth materials. Then, in the early 80’s, there was an incident at a western mining facility (Mountain Pass) where some Thorium (a by product of rare earth mining) spill out from a tillings pipe.

The enviro groups and EPA went bonkers a changed Thorium’s classification as nuclear waste making it too much of a hassle for mining companies. Many simply changed to other materials or packed up and went to China.

China today has a 90+ % monopoly on rare earth materials...so much so that many companies are forced to do business there.

To get a better idea on this issue, I give you two YouTube segments:

THE THORIUM PROBLEM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyqYP6f66Mw

National Security, Rare Earth Elements & The Thorium Problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxwF93wnRQo