[sinsofsolarempirefan]

It would probably be more economically viable to just re-open the mines already in the US that were priced out by China’s use of slave labor...

[slowhandluke]

The sane action would be (and would have been) to simply tax any imported rare-earth minerals or products made with them that didn't come from a mine up to EPA standards. And charge that mine for the cost of EPA monitoring. This gets us much closer to an even market.

Having EPA rules that only affect US mines and wells without any penalty for importing from dirty mines elsewhere is simply economic suicide - but I do think that was the primary intent. It's so silly that I have to ascribe it to malignity.