We ship our trash to China to be recycled, including the electronics that contains these rare minerals. It should be pretty easy to be able to keep that trash in the country and recycle it here.
IIRC, back in the 1930’s we shipped our scrap metal to Japan. Even though that stopped with the outbreak of WWII I recall reading where “our boys spoke of the Chicago El (elevated train tracks) being shot at them.
Now you have to ask yourself, How much of the electronic trash being shipped out (possibly because it is too difficult to comply with environmental laws or lawsuits) that contain some of the very "reclaimable" rare earth elements that the article discusses? Will we one day wake up and realize that "Like the Chicago El" we shipped to a potential enemy the very items we need to keep our economy running?