I thought the US was importing a lot of rare earth materials from China.
We have production here, so we don’t need to import them. This is supposed to be good.
The US does mine some of the “light” REs but as for the important “Heavy” REs that is a bit of a challenge.
Enviro rules in the 70’s and 80’s killed the RE mining industry. Many companies don’t want to deal with the regulatory hassle.
If you simply rectified the “Thorium” issue, the US can jump start it’s RE industry. Heck, the tillings lakes have a lot of REs which can be gathered rather easily (more or less). Enough to satisfy our needs for many, many years.
Background Video from someone in the trenches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyqYP6f66Mw
TEAC reps have been working to insert “thorium reforms” into the Congressional docket but have been rebuffed by Military pencil pushers and enviro nuts.
Thing weren’t moving until Trump stepped in...might get some movement on this matter.