“Yes, I have a hard time believing the leaders of our country have allowed the US to become dependent on anything. How long ago did these contract for strategic minerals become a reality?? and why??”
I think that the reasoning was/is that we will never have another WW2 situation, where the US is the Arsenal of Democracy in a multi-year war in which production is as much of a weapon as guns, planes and ships - because everything will quickly go nuclear, and we’ll have to fight with forces in place. Personally, I think that this is a very, very short-sighted policy. We need to rebuild these stocks, because we simply cannot know what will occur in the future - and, besides, if we do have large stocks of critical materials (and a very robust military production base of factories, equipment and skilled labor), then the odds of anyone starting up with us will drop - considerably.
I agree with you. The problem with the shortsightedness stems, I believe, from a warped group-think that seems to infiltrate all bureaucrats.