Posted on 04/29/2020 11:45:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has urged administration officials to support the development of a fully domestic rare earths supply chain and to reduce U.S. dependence on China for minerals essential for defense technologies manufacturing.
In letters written to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (pdf) and Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt (pdf), Cruz, along with Senate colleagues, cautioned about the risk of relying on the Chinese Communist Party for rare earths, noting that the United States currently only has one operating rare earth mine and no domestic refining capacity.
“It is clear that our dependence on China for vital rare earths threatens our U.S. manufacturing and defense industrial base,” the senators wrote on April 24.
Since the United States has no refining capacity of its own, current rare earth concentrates extracted in California are being sent to China for processing, they wrote.
The lawmakers referenced an October 2018 Defense Industrial Base (DIB) report that stated that China is a “significant and growing risk” to the supply of materials critical to U.S. national security and that ensuring a domestic source of rare earths would reduce the risk to U.S. military readiness.
In July 2019, President Donald Trump wrote in a memo “that the domestic production capability for separation and processing of Light Rare Earth Elements is essential to the national defense.”
During the trade war in 2019, China at one point also threatened to withhold exports of rare earth elements to the United States.
The senators noted that the United States is “100% import-dependent for rare earths as well as 13 other metals and minerals.” These minerals are listed on the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List.
In the letters, which were both similar in language, the senators warned the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
Yep, time to bring ALL important manufacturing back home.
Yes, he’s absolutely correct.
Bring back everything we can, and if we can’t, let allies do it.
How right he is.
Eschewing the obvious “I Just Want to Celebrate” jokes.
Already on it in my old home town.
Precious rare earths, important in the production of microchips, electronics and electric motors were almost exclusively sourced in China. In recent years, several nations have picked up production again while new players entered the market, diversifying it to some degree.
Yet, China was still responsible for almost two thirds of global production in 2019, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But as many countries are wary of depending on China, especially when it comes to technology products, countries with rare earth deposits are likely to exploit them further. The U.S., however, is still shipping its rare earths to China for processing, but a first processing plant on American soil is in the planning stages with funding help from the U.S. army.
China also has the largest known deposits of rare earths, but Brazil, Vietnam and Russia also have a lot of (largely) untapped potential in the sector. The United States and Australia ramped up production of rare earths after 2010 and most recently, Myanmar has been mining a considerable amount. The U.S. had in the past mined and produced rare earths for military uses and we re-entered the market as rare earths were getting more important as a part of the implementation of crucial technologies.
Finally. Praise eodymium!
That was actually a reasonable reason to offer to buy Greenland - they have one of the few well-developed rare earth mining sites outside of China or Chinese control (see Afghanistan).
Politicians look for things to champion, to put their name/brand on it and ride it hard, getting their name out there and essentially advertising for themselves with these topics.
Often, politicians jump on complete piles of shit, i.e. global warming, dead beat dads, texting and driving, no child left behind... Junk that gets people emotionally charged and where you can offer some solution which everyone with 2 brain cells knows will do absolutely nothing to fix the issue.
***Hats off to Cruz, this is actually something of strategic national security / economic and sovereignty significance.
I do not know how much traction this will get him, because you can’t get some crying or screaming woman on TV where the news stuffs a mic under her mouth and then you can stand next to her offering a make belief solution, but this is actually a “real” and an “important” topic. Cool that he goes for something like this and not just some pop culture junk theme where bumper stickers drive the narrative.
Reliance for noodles and chopsticks on China is a great risk.
This is a great move as long as it’s not going to be used as an excuse to import a bunch of cheap foreign labor for that industry.
No, things like: neodymium
Some of these rare earth metals make things work or work a whole lot better and are needed in defense, medicine, aviation and many other applications.
https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5dc32140f049680007f83b17/960x0.jpg?fit=scale
http://www.eurare.eu/images/Slide7.jpg
https://etn-demeter.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Figure-2.-Source-www.stockhouse.com_.jpg
In many cases we can do without the rare earth metals (substitution), but you end up with much lower performing, bigger, lower power density, lesser range, heavier product. You often don’t need much of these materials, but the little bit you do need is very important. It’s the “special sauce” that kicks performance into the range of what we are use to today with drones for example (high performance batteries and motors).
Trump should buy Greenland now.
So won't happen........
ABSOLUTELY Sen. Cruz!!!!!!!!!!
SPOT ON!!!
Completely correct. Been watching this issue unfold for years.
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