On Dec. 3, China banned exporting critical minerals such as gallium, germanium, and antimony to the United States. This came in the wake of the Biden administration’s announcement of new restrictions on the sale of chips and specialized chip-making machinery and software to China the day before. This exchange is merely the latest round in the ongoing battle for the raw materials that control the future of energy and tech. China and the U.S. are in a wrestling match over mineral dominance that is more critical than the 20th-century struggle for the control of oil.
After the U.S. imposed its new restrictions, the Chinese foreign ministry characterized the measure as a “malicious suppression of China’s technological progress.” Beijing also cited national security concerns as the reason for its subsequent export ban of critical minerals and limitations on the export of graphite. This echoes American statements, which similarly cited national security concerns.
It is easy to see why. Rare earth elements, a subsection of critical minerals that refer to 17 metals found throughout the earth’s crust, have become increasingly important to several high-tech sectors crucial to security and development, like renewable energy, electronics, defense, communications, and healthcare. The minerals the Chinese just embargoed have applications in the defense and technology sectors. Antimony is used in solar cells and increasingly in defense technology like infrared missiles and nuclear weapons and as a hardening agent for bullets and tanks. Gallium is used to manufacture semiconductors used for advanced defense communications. Germanium is used to make many electronic components and military force multipliers, like night vision equipment and advanced targeting systems.
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These metals only represent a fraction of the capabilities enabled by having a steady supply of rare earth elements. The issue of Chinese control over the mining and processing of these materials has been building up for years as China ramped up its capacity. At the same time, the United States largely ignored domestic resources despite having its own deposits. China now controls approximately 85 percent of the global rare earth element refining capacity, and this near monopoly has become a serious concern for the U.S. national security and technological progress.
The 2010 halt of China’s rare earths trade with Japan began focusing Washington’s attention on the threat posed by China’s increasing control. The Trump and Biden administrations introduced policy changes to turn the tide. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 138 17, aimed at boosting U.S. domestic production of rare earths. This was followed by another executive order in 2020 declaring reliance on China, which was supplying 80 percent of the rare earths needed by America at the time, to be a national emergency.
The Biden administration continued this approach by including funding for rare earth extraction and refinement facilities in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. During her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris proposed a stockpile of critical minerals, including rare earth elements. As a second Trump administration is poised to levy additional tariffs against China, it is imperative that the U.S. continue moving quickly to reduce its reliance on Chinese mining and production to limit the impact of any retaliation by Beijing.
The rest of the West has joined the effort to diversify this supply chain. The U.S. now classifies the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada as “domestic” suppliers and supports efforts from companies like Australian Strategic Minerals and Lynas Rare Earths to construct facilities in the United States and partnered countries. Western nations like Germany have worked to secure minerals through other nations rich in rare earths, such as Kazakhstan, Namibia, Angola, and others.
The incoming Trump administration must work to fully secure America’s rare earth supply chains against Chinese dominance by leveraging the advantages at the country’s disposal. The U.S. has significant reserves of materials in its subsoil, which could allow it to have the second-highest production of rare earth elements in the world. These reserves are severely underdeveloped.
The U.S. currently represents only 12.3 percent of global output compared to China’s 69 percent. Growing American extraction capacity should be prioritized over strengthening foreign mining partnerships to guarantee a secure supply. This is not to say that international cooperation should be ignored: maintaining existing partnerships can help to create redundancy across supply chains. However, by shoring up domestic production of rare earth elements, the Trump administration can add a new dimension to its “America First” approach, boosting American national security and establishing U.S. leadership in an area that previous administrations have neglected.
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a senior fellow (non-resident) at the Atlantic Council. Wesley Alexander Hill is lead analyst with Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax and Investment Center. They are co-authors of “Leveraging Central Asia’s Rare Earth Elements for Economic Growth.”
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
