The rare earth was never about deposits.
Everyone knows, even if not yet found, there are deposits all over the world and it was never exclusive to China. Heck the US has plenty of these deposits.
The issue is that extracting them from the ground usually does damage to the local environment, and up to this point, China is the rare country that is willing to complete pollute their environment for a few bucks, and hence they were one of the few countries producing it. The other countries find it easier to buy from China, then deal with environmentalists protesting etc to produce it themselves.
If China tries to hold the rest of the world hostage over this, I’m sure the other countries if they get desperate enough will find ways to produce what they need elsewhere.
They are called 'Rare Earths'. They are not particularly rare.
"If we look at how other permit processes have worked within our industry, it will be at least 10-15 years before we can actually begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market," LKAB CEO Jan Moström said. "We must change the permit processes to ensure increased mining of this type of raw material in Europe."
I was going to post just that. Good observation.
Rare earth ores often contain radioactive thorium , sometimes in very high concentrations, extracting the rare earth oxides leave behind a radioactive mess
Is child labor also a factor?
Last year my military son and I were discusing solar power. He said we were sending high quality quartz from the Carolinas to China. The Chinese used this to make solar panels, then ship them back to us. This seemed very energy wasteful so I researched, and discovered Cadmium Telluride. First Solar (Ohio?) produces thin film cadium telluride sheet which is sandwiched between glass panes, and is equal or better than quartz solar panels for energy produced, and price. It is environmentally sound because it is extracted from copper mine tailings (masses of earthen waste from copper extraction). Another element Indium, can be used for solar and can be extracted from Zinc mine tailings. It sounds like the Lapland deposits of rare earths are associated with Iron ore and may include Lithium and other rare earths.
It appears the Lapland deposits may be deeply buried and hard to extract because of environmental laws, but rare earths in already mined tailings are a much more accessible source since tailing ground is already an environmental waste land. Are there any US businesses already exploring and exploiting the combined mining and refining of various rare earths found in conjunction with mining waste? Sounds like an interesting business to develop. This link discusses telluride as used in thin film solar production
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovoltaics
The mining giant Rio Tinto is planning soon to mine cadmium telluride in Utah to help grow the solar panel industry. First Solar wants to do major expansion of its production.
Extraction of rare earths from tailings and other mining waste is a promising source. As more companies and countries expand their rare earth production, the Chinese may decide they want to be a bit more polite to their rare earch customers. Why kill their own golden goose with unnecessary hostilities? After all, their own people are eager to have the cell phones and all the other modern “toys” made possible with rare earth chemicals.