US Accelerates Rare-Earth Mining and Partnerships to Curb China Dependence in Tech and Defense

The New Rare-Earth Race: America’s Bid for Technological Sovereignty

The world’s most advanced technologies—smartphones, electric vehicles, missile guidance systems—are built on a foundation far more elemental than silicon or code. They rely on rare-earth elements, a suite of 17 obscure metals whose names seldom grace headlines, but whose scarcity and strategic significance have become the fulcrum of a new geopolitical contest. The Trump administration’s recent push to curtail American reliance on Chinese rare-earth metals is more than a policy adjustment; it is a high-stakes gambit to reshape the global order of technology and resource security.

Breaking the Chains of Rare-Earth Dependence

For decades, the United States has ceded ground in the rare-earth sector, watching as China consolidated its grip over both mining and refining. Today, China controls approximately 70% of global rare-earth extraction and an even more daunting 90% of refining capacity. This dominance has enabled Beijing to wield disproportionate influence over the supply chains of industries that define both economic might and national defense.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s unveiling of America’s first domestically produced rare-earth magnet in a quarter-century is more than symbolic. It signals a deliberate effort to reclaim industrial autonomy—an ambition echoed in the Pentagon’s backing of MP Materials and its Mountain Pass mine in California. The “mine-to-magnet” vision seeks to close the loop, ensuring that rare-earths mined on American soil are also refined and fabricated into high-value components domestically. By doing so, the U.S. hopes to insulate its innovation engine from the strategic vulnerabilities of a single-source supply chain.

The High Cost of Sovereignty

Yet the path to self-sufficiency is neither quick nor easy. Rare-earth extraction and processing are technologically complex, environmentally fraught, and capital-intensive. China’s production advantage is not merely a function of geology but of decades-long investments in infrastructure, expertise, and, controversially, less stringent environmental oversight. For the U.S., matching this scale and efficiency will require more than patriotic rhetoric.

Enter the proposed sovereign wealth fund championed by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Such an instrument could marshal the financial firepower needed to jumpstart domestic rare-earth industries, but it also surfaces profound questions. How will the U.S. reconcile the urgency of industrial expansion with the imperatives of environmental stewardship? Can regulatory frameworks evolve quickly enough to support both rapid development and sustainable practices? The answers will shape not only the future of rare-earths but also the broader contours of American industrial policy.

Geopolitics at the Atomic Level

The stakes of this rare-earth revival extend far beyond economics. As supply chains fracture under the weight of rising global tensions, the control of critical raw materials has become a lever of statecraft. The U.S. is not acting alone; partnerships with Australia, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Japan reflect a growing international consensus on the need to dilute China’s market power. But as Washington moves to secure its own interests, it may inadvertently accelerate a global trend toward resource nationalism—one that could redraw the map of economic interdependence.

The present moment is thus defined by a paradox: the technologies that promise to knit the world closer together are increasingly dependent on resources whose control is becoming ever more contested. The U.S. initiative to rebuild its rare-earth supply chain is at once a defensive maneuver and a declaration of intent—a signal that technological sovereignty is now inseparable from resource security.

The outcome of this contest will reverberate across boardrooms and battlefields alike. Whether America’s renewed industrial ambition can overcome the inertia of decades-long dependence remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that the race for rare-earths is no longer a matter of geology or chemistry alone. It is a contest for the future shape of global power—and the rules of engagement are still being written.