This Is How The US Can Become a Player in Rare Earth Metals
A realistic path for competing with China.
A dump truck moves raw ore inside the pit at the Mountain Pass mine in Mountain Pass, California.
Photographer: Joe Buglewicz/BloombergListen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts
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China's dominance of the rare earths market is well known. This not only creates potential vulnerabilities for companies, should access to those rare earths ever get cut off, but it also gives China significant leverage in trade negotiations right now. Of course, the issue is not that China is naturally endowed with more of these materials, but rather that, it has built up an industrial ecosystem over decades to mine and process them. So, is there any prospect of the US entering the arena in a way that's actually competitive? Our guest says yes. Heidi Crebo-Rediker is a senior fellow in the Center for Geoeconomics Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier in her career, she was the US State Department's first chief economist. For the CFR, Heidi has undertaken an extensive study of the US position with respect to rare earths and developed a broad set of suggestions for how the US can actually compete. She discusses the resources we have right now, and the technologies and policies that could make the US competitive in this arena.