America Must Close the Rare Earth Gap

Austin Bay
Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:56:46 -0800
Opinion

Thank goodness the Trump administration and technology-savvy congressional leaders (in both parties) agree on one very key strategic issue vis-a-vis Communist China: America must close the rare earth gap.

The 17 rare earth minerals — also called rare earth elements (REEs) — are fundamental to digital modernity. REEs possess irreplaceable catalytic, magnetic, conduction and luminescent properties vital to manufacturing digital-age essentials such as smartphones, computers, medical imaging equipment, advanced batteries, etc.

The Cold War had its bomber gap, followed by the missile gap — "gaps" in the number of strategic offensive weapons possessed by the East and West. In the early 1950s, Washington believed the Soviet Union had the advantage in deployed long-range, jet-powered, nuclear-capable bombers. Eventually, aerial recon imagery revealed Russia had no edge. However, the 1957 Sputnik satellite launch provided a strong indication that Moscow had a big advantage in long-range, large-payload ballistic missiles — the missile gap.
Updated: Wed Dec 10, 2025

Thank goodness the Trump administration and technology-savvy congressional leaders (in both parties) agree on one very key strategic issue vis-a-vis Communist China: America must close the rare earth gap.

The 17 rare earth minerals — also called rare earth elements (REEs) — are fundamental to digital modernity. REEs possess irreplaceable catalytic, magnetic, conduction and luminescent properties vital to manufacturing digital-age essentials such as smartphones, computers, medical imaging equipment, advanced batteries, etc.

The Cold War had its bomber gap, followed by the missile gap — "gaps" in the number of strategic offensive weapons possessed by the East and West. In the early 1950s, Washington believed the Soviet Union had the advantage in deployed long-range, jet-powered, nuclear-capable bombers. Eventually, aerial recon imagery revealed Russia had no edge. However, the 1957 Sputnik satellite launch provided a strong indication that Moscow had a big advantage in long-range, large-payload ballistic missiles — the missile gap.

The U.S. caught up — by manufacturing and fielding superior systems.

However, it's the 21st century. Today, manufacturing virtually all high-tech military weapons and communications systems requires REEs, from vital strategic sensors (e.g., satellites and radars detecting enemy missiles) to the command and guidance systems on offensive weapons.

Unfortunately, the U.S. is once again playing a serious game of catch-up.

Communist China has become a rare earth monopolist. Well, not quite a monopolist, but China is definitely the overwhelmingly dominant political actor in the mining, refining and distribution of rare earth minerals essential to modern digital and electronic tech.

How did it happen? Washington let it. The Epoch Times recently noted that, until 1991, the U.S. "was a leading producer of rare earth minerals ..." But environmentalist objections led to the closure of major mines. China stepped in.

Fair question worth investigating: Did Chinese strategists encourage and perhaps fund U.S. environmental and climate extremists? Cold War Moscow's intelligence agencies used Western peace and disarmament activists to try and shake Western resolve.

Beijing has also targeted some not-so-modern military essentials. China has gained production and/or market control of other critical minerals, including trisulfide, a type of antimony used in manufacturing bullet cartridge primers — as in the ignition of a simple rifle bullet. Reuters recently reported that the U.S. had not domestically manufactured trisulfide since the 1960s.

I credit this to Red China's deep strategy, which I summarize as this: Beijing does not want to risk a shooting war with the U.S. ("kinetic war" in Pentagonese). Goodness, the U.S. is China's biggest market. Post-Tiananmen Square, the communist dictatorship's deal with the Chinese people is they can have smartphones and MacBooks and American pork — the goodies of modernity — as long as they shut up and let the Politburo rule.

Trading high explosives with your biggest market is bad for business. However, Beijing has a deep case of ethnic Han Chinese Middle Kingdom imperialism. Emperor Xi really wants to become the world's superpower.

So, Beijing plays a long game: Surpass the U.S. as the world's leading manufacturer, and gain control of essential minerals to the point it can deny modern manufacturing essentials. On the dirty side, China wages disintegrative warfare against the U.S. by supplying drug cartels with fentanyl and encouraging open U.S. borders.

Another fair question: Has Beijing helped fund the "defund the police" and "no cash bail" movements?

How does America respond? The Trump administration has reached mineral deals with several nations, including Australia, Malaysia and Japan. Reopening domestic "mothballed" REE mines has to happen. How long will that take? Likely a decade or more. Cost? Probably hundreds of millions. But reshoring REE production is a must.

Brilliant research may have opened a readily accessible domestic mine that's an interim solution: graveyards of old electronic and digital equipment. The Epoch Times reported that Rice University chemist and nanotechnologist James Tour "has pioneered a way to quickly extract rare earth metals" from "electronic waste" (discarded electronics).

He uses a process called "flash Joule heating," rapidly heating the valuable junk "to thousands of degrees to vaporize the metals ..." A chemical process then extracts individual REEs.

Tour claims a flash Joule heating facility can be up and running for "a few tens of millions of dollars." I'll donate a very dead Compaq Deskpro to the cause.