Posted on 09/22/2022 7:39:21 PM PDT by george76
While China has been relentlessly pursuing self-reliance when it comes to raw materials -- especially strategic ones such as titanium, tungsten and cobalt, which are used in the defense industry -- the US for the past several decades has been selling off huge chunks of the strategic minerals stockpile to the extent that the National Defense Stockpile is reportedly reaching insolvency.
By comparison, China, as of 2020, was the world's third-largest exporter of titanium, while the US was the number one destination for the Chinese titanium exports.
It is China's growing influence in Africa, especially through its Belt and Road Initiative, the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013, that has helped China achieve such near monopolies when it comes to precious resources and raw materials.
The rare earths dependency on China stems in part from the fact that extracting rare earth minerals is an extremely polluting process that China has been willing to undertake, while most other countries have not, including the US, which ironically prides itself on having extremely strict environmental regulations in place.
The US, according to Reuters, has only one rare earths mine and no capability to process rare earth minerals. If China were to stop exporting them to the US, the country would fast run out of the basic building blocks required to produce the military hardware that the US needs, not to mention all the other items where rare earth minerals are needed.
At present, 40 out of Africa's 54 countries participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative.
"Beijing has increased its control of African commodities through strategic direct investment in oil fields, mines, and production facilities, as well as through resource-backed loans that call for in-kind payments of commodities. This control threatens the ability of U.S. companies to access key supplies." — U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 Report to Congress.
"The PRC's [Communist China's] long-term goal," the Pentagon wrote in 2020, "is to create an entirely self-reliant defense-industrial sector—fused with a strong civilian industrial and technology sector—that can meet the PLA's needs for modern military capabilities."
While China has been relentlessly pursuing self-reliance when it comes to raw materials -- especially strategic ones such as titanium, tungsten and cobalt, which are used in the defense industry -- the US for the past several decades has been selling off huge chunks of the strategic minerals stockpile to the extent that the National Defense Stockpile is reportedly reaching insolvency.
The National Defense Stockpile was established during World War II to ensure that the US military had critical materials necessary for its national defense, including titanium, tungsten, aluminum, and cobalt, especially in the event of a supply chain disruption. The stockpile is managed by the Defense Logistics Agency. According to Defense News:
The stockpile was valued at nearly $42 billion in today's dollars at its peak during the beginning of the Cold War in 1952. That value has plummeted to $888 million as of last year following decades of congressionally authorized sell-offs to private sector customers. Lawmakers anticipate the stockpile will become insolvent by FY25."
In a bipartisan letter signed by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass) and seven other members of Congress, it was pointed out how the US abandoned all caution, mindlessly selling off critical and strategic minerals:
...
It was just ignorance on our part that we allowed that to happen," Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. said. "I don't see any other reason for it."
By comparison, China, as of 2020, was the world's third-largest exporter of titanium, while the US was the number one destination for the Chinese titanium exports. Similarly, China exports a large quantity of tungsten to the United States. When it comes to cobalt, in 2021 the Democratic Republic of Congo accounted for 70% of the world's total output of cobalt, but with Chinese investors controlling a similar proportion of the cobalt production, according to The Wall Street Journal. It is China's growing influence in Africa, especially through its Belt and Road Initiative, the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013, that has helped China achieve such near monopolies when it comes to precious resources and raw materials.
...
Having sold off so much of the US strategic critical mineral reserves, the US now depends on China for rare earth minerals, which are crucial for everything in the US military from F-35 fighter jets, missiles, and tanks to mobile phones and radio communication.
The rare earths dependency on China stems in part from the fact that extracting rare earth minerals is an extremely polluting process that China has been willing to undertake, while most other countries have not, including the US, which ironically prides itself on having strict environmental regulations in place. While ongoing research seeking to make the process less polluting could change that, such a change will not occur overnight. The US, according to Reuters, has only one rare earths mine and no capability to process rare earth minerals. If China were to stop exporting them to the US, the country would fast run out of the basic building blocks required to produce the military hardware that the US needs, not to mention all the other items where rare earth minerals are needed.
In February, Reuters reported that the Pentagon was planning to boost the stockpile of rare earth minerals, in addition to cobalt and lithium. The twist is that it can only do so by buying, at least in part, from China, which currently sits on 90% of the rare earth minerals supply.
Boosting the strategic mineral reserves is long overdue, but the question is whether the initiatives mentioned above will be enough at this point. China has been following a strategy of investing in strategic raw materials for decades and it seeks to dominate in the countries, especially in Africa, where those raw materials can be found. At present, 40 out of Africa's 54 countries participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative.
...
Seen in the light of China's evident ambition to control critical global resources -- and the strides is has made to do so, as evidenced by the US-China Economic and Security Commission -- the problem that the US faces will hardly be resolved simply by increasing the budget of the National Defense Stockpile.
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Huge lithium find in Newty, Maine. Looks like the environmentalist won’t allow mining.
https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2022-07-26/state-complicates-newry-couples-hopes-to-mine-lithium-on-their-property
Marxists who hate America = environmentalists
It was just ignorance on our part that we allowed that to happen,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. said. “I don’t see any other reason for it.”
Hey Tim! I have another reason for it. Greed.
For example Uranium One.
Our new Chinese overlords have plenty. We’ll have nothing and be happy.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin — ‘The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.’
We are pretty much out of helium gas too.
We need to develop a clean way of processing to gather rare earths.
We as a Great Power Nation have access to all the minerals that an industrial civilization needs to prosper and grow.
However, the current globalist commercial operations that control North America prefer Asian producers filling the vacuum of our non productivity.
This is happening at the same time United States capitalists are “playing around” and subsidizing non producing woke ideologues.
My prediction is:
We hit peak globalization a decade ago & the global economy will continue to deteriorate over the next decade.
Stay tuned.....the economic ride is “going to be wild.”
A whole mountain of giant lithium crystals.
Maine enacted a law a few years ago prohibiting any mine over three acres.
There are a lot of gems and minerals in Maine.
The US’s major rare earth mine was closed by B. Clinton as a favor to one of his foreign buddies and turned into a National Preserve.
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