Why is America not going after rare earth metals and only going after oil? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 days ago by Born2Die66@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ca

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Is anyone else concerned why none of our politicians seem to care about going after rare earth metals? They are THE FUTURE!!!!! They will be used for building EVERYTHING IN THE FUTURE!!!! Everything from cell phones to car batteries (which wont contain ANY OIL) ALLLLLLL the way to fusion rocket engines to travel THROUGH SPACE! So WHY isn't the strongest nation on the planet securing them and allowing China to go after them and surpass us so vastly while we fumble around worrying about oil???? Oh yeah, because of the fucking boomers and their propaganda machine , the corruption, and the worst parts of capitialism like lobby's and big oil! I sometimes feel like our system is just so broken we are all fucked sometimes...

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[-] stylusmobilus@aussie.zone 0 points 6 days ago

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.

this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026

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