“Why is the United States reliant on China and Russia for strategic minerals when we have more of these valuable resources than both these nations combined?”
Until it becomes untenable (like Saudi Arabia) why not use up their resources? I think there is a better case for minerals to be a finite resource than there ever was for peak oil.
Because it makes us a dependent nation rather than an independent nation. And I'd bet the mineral resource situation would develop just as the energy resource situation developed in the past few decades. New technology and further exploration would find large and previously unknown, or unreachable mineral resources that could be mined.
And there was that story a few months back that coal ash contains rare earth minerals.
Maybe you dont know or forget the oil embargo?