No, I’m an Aussie, my information on this comes from reading a couple of articles on rare earth domination by the Chinese and that affecting US military supply. The two key points were the Chinese moving strategically on it (as someone else pointed out they don’t care, they also mention a US labour law) and American miners not being interested in something with little returns.
At the time other things that were mentioned was us filling a gap. We do have concentrated deposits of certain rare earths in Australia but it’s environmentally contentious here. There were rutile, zircon and ilmenite plants on the sand islands in Queensland but they’re now closed.