Who going to supply tungsten besides the Russians? Whose going to supply rare earths besides the Chinese?
B. Clinton’s fault.
Who’s.
There are tungsten mines in the eastern Sierras, closed of course but the tungsten is still there. Rare earth minerals may also be available here. Don’t know.
I get what you’re saying, but we should buy the raw materials and manufacture what we need here. We have the economic might to dictate these terms. If they don’t sell to us, then sanctions, and we dedicate our industrial and intellectual might to finding alternatives. We can be 90% self sufficient, relying only on trusted alies for the other 10%.
Don’t know about tungston—but the USA has plenty of rare earths. They’re just a bit more expensive than Chinese rare earths. For example, A big research effort is underway to extract rare earths from coal mine wastes.