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The United States’ dependency on China for rare earth elements is a security risk, according to lawmakers and experts, and is being exacerbated by the Biden administration’s forced transition to so-called “green” technologies.
The Biden administration’s top-down push toward renewables requires an enormous growth in the mining of rare earth elements. Currently, the United States relies on the mining and processing powers of China, which has far worse environmental regulations, to achieve many of its needs.
“We’re heavily dependent on foreign adversarial nations,” said Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) during an Aug. 22 interview with NTD, an affiliate media outlet of The Epoch Times.
“If today, the communist country of China stopped selling us their critical and rare earth minerals, we would be in deep trouble from our national defense to our manufacturing across the globe.”
Rare earth elements are a number of elements with unique characteristics, which have made them vital to new technologies. Critical minerals are those rare earth elements that have no substitute, are limited in supply, or are economically vital.
Stauber’s comments came just weeks after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the United States would try to end its “undue dependence” on rare earths, which it requires to manufacture various technologies from solar panels to electric vehicle batteries to smartphones.
