America and rare earths: a little urgency, please

Asia Times

7 hours ago

America usually has other countries over a barrel. Not the other way around – unless you're old enough to remember when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cracked the whip and Washington and the West usually fell in line.
But last week China forced President Trump to back down on tough tariffs that were hurting the PRC.
Why the retreat?
Rare earth minerals. They're nearly all sourced from China and Beijing choked off exports.
Major American companies – car makers for example – warned Trump they'd have to curtail or shut down operations in a matter of weeks.
That's never good for an incumbent party's political prospects.
The Trump administration reduced tariffs in exchange for Beijing's sort-of agreement to allow rare earth exports to US customers.
How much and how fast is unknown – but expect the PRC to slow-roll this and squeeze all it can – such as sensitive business data – from its customers.
At best, this is a temporary reprieve.
The US side also agreed to drop plans to ban Chinese students from US universities.
One also suspects a quiet agreement to relax US controls on semiconductor and AI-related technology exports to China.
US tariffs remain at 55%, but that's much lower than the 145% originally imposed. And the PRC probably can handle that level.
There's still a 20% 'fentanyl tariff' imposed for Chinese-origin fentanyl that has killed well over 500,000 Americans over the last decade.
This ought to be 2000%. Instead, US negotiators settled for China agreeing (once again) to discuss the fentanyl issue.
China controls around 90% of the world's rare earth processing. And America imports most of its rare earths from the PRC.
It's not that they are rare. The US has plenty of rare earths. It's just much cheaper to source from China, and US environmental laws make domestic mining and processing difficult and expensive.
They are essential for commercial manufacturing – cars, electronics, computers, etc.
And more ominously they're needed for military production – to include aircraft, ships, submarines, radars, missiles, lasers, satellites, guidance systems, night vision devices and more.
It's not Trump's fault. He got caught holding the hot potato.
China's chokehold on rare earths was known a long time ago.
American business and the US military knew. And Congress knew as well.
And they knew the Chinese might use their dominant position to squeeze other countries.
In 2010 after Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat that rammed a Coast Guard ship near Japan's Senkaku islands, China banned rare earth exports to Japan.
Japanese industry squirmed. The boat and its skipper were returned.
And Japan set about finding alternate sources of rare earths.
The United States?
Apparently it did nothing.
It was 15 years of idiocy by the business class, officialdom and the military's perfumed princes.
Yes, some people sounded the alarm, but they got nowhere. Being known as 'the rare earths congressman' wasn't a vote-getter.
The Obama and Biden administrations' environmental zealots were glad to have 'dirty' rare earths produced elsewhere – but not in America.
Businessmen are all about efficiency, low cost and maximizing profit. Rare earths would always be available somewhere – and anyway the Chinese wouldn't choke the flow. After all, the Chinese weren't an enemy. They just wanted to get rich.
Such rationalizations come easy to the MBA class.
But rare earth vulnerability was also not a priority for America's military leaders.
Think about this.
Nobody saw anything wrong with being dependent – over 90% dependent – on the PRC for a crucial resource that the military needs to fight?
The PRC had declared America 'the main enemy' and has built a military intended for one main purpose: to defeat the US military.
But they would keep supplying the US military with vital materials – without which it can barely function?
Who in the top ranks was raising merry hell about this state of affairs? Nobody.
Instead, it was Legions of Merit and promotions all around.
The rare earth problem is now getting attention. It has been for a few years.
The Trump administration has bought a little time, but the PRC will use rare earths as a Sword of Damocles as long as possible.
Still there's no sense of urgency.
'Drill baby drill' and Yankee ingenuity got American energy independence back in Trump 1.o – even if Team Biden later decided it didn't like the idea.
So maybe it will be 'Rare earths baby rare earths' this time around.
If so, restoring tax credits for domestic critical minerals mining and processing to the administration's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is essential.
Pundits say it will take ten years to break the China dependency.
They are often wrong.
When Americans put their minds to something – and are given freedom to operate – things always happen faster.
But first stop admiring the problem and get moving.
Faster.
Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He's a fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute, and is the author of When China Attacks: A Warning to America . Follow on X @NewshamGrant