Rare Earth Minerals are not Rare, but Refining of Them Is

I’ve received several inquiries from readers since posting the interview I did with NTD News last week related to China’s new restrictions in the export of rare earth minerals to the United States. In that interview, I emphasized the reality that supply of rare earth minerals is not a problem: Enormous supplies of them exist in situ all over the world, including in the United States, which has abundant known reserves.

The excellent illustration atop this piece shows the known deposits of rare earth minerals globally.

But the US government makes the permitting of mines to produce these known reserves virtually impossible to achieve, meaning we must import them from other countries. Amid our rising cold war with China, the crucial point related to national security here does not relate to the production of these minerals, but to the refining and processing of them.