According to the report, Yang Danhui of China's Academy of Social Sciences said in 2018 that China’s rare-earth strategy is one of capturing “international supply chains for rare mineral resources, and gradually mastering the leading power of rare earth

Last April, Japan discovered 16 million tons worth of rare earth deposits off Minami-Tori-shima island, which scientists said would provide hundreds of years’ worth of rare earth minerals.

On May 12, Beijing announced the second batch of tariff exemptions to 79 U.S. products, including “rare earth mineral ores, aircraft radar equipment, semiconductor parts, medical disinfectants, and a range of precious metals, chemical, and petrochemical

funding for rare earth mining projects.

China’s Dominance and the Constraint It Imposes China’s dominance in critical minerals is often misunderstood. Rare earths are not geologically scarce. Lithium is also globally distributed.

To the extent Biden is successful in reducing American utilization of fossil fuels, it will force us to become dependent on Chinese rare earth minerals and Chinese wind and solar equipment.

Greenland has untapped resources, including nearly 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and trillions of dollars worth of minerals, including rare earth elements needed for technology and defense.

Trump said that Zelenskyy had “essentially agreed” to give the United States access to some $500 billion worth of deposits of rare earths and critical minerals.

But there are negatives to solar—you use a lot of rare earth minerals in the production of solar panels. They have hazardous materials in them. You can't just send them to a regular municipal waste site.

Even under the relative stability of the U.S. involvement, China had made little progress on its existing investments in Afghanistan and had not even begun the extraction of Afghanistan’s rare earth minerals.

In light of China's monopoly of the rare earths market, the U.S. government has been taking steps to establish a domestic supply chain for rare earths and other minerals vital for battery-making.

Motivation for the annexation has also been made clear, with Trump citing the nation’s zinc, gold, copper, and other minerals. Greenland has an estimated 1.5 million tons of rare earth resources.

Furthermore, the United States relies on China for about half of the critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, and rare earths.

The value of Afghanistan's mineral resources is estimated at $1 trillion, including the rare-earth minerals whose supply chains China predominates.

President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hold up signed documents for a critical minerals/rare-earth deal with Japan during a meeting at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, on Oct. 28, 2025.

Ron Kliewer, president of Public Lands for the People, said that the country locks up rare earth elements and other critical minerals that could be put to use in electronics instead of relying on foreign sources.

The drive towards net zero in Western nations, and the need for the fast and widespread roll-out of solar panels, wind turbines, and battery storage, has underpinned significant demand for critical minerals and rare earth material needed for manufacturing

Greenland is believed to have significant geological potential for oil, gas, and critical minerals, including rare earth elements, although estimates of recoverable resources vary, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“Currently, there is one country that dominates processing for copper, rhenium, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and virtually every other critical mineral and rare earth I could name—and that’s China,” he said.

Senator Maro Rubio (R-Fla.) recently introduced a bill that aims to break off the country’s reliance on importing rare earth minerals from China.

China sees Greenland as a possible source of rare earths and other minerals and a port for shipping through the Arctic to the eastern United States.

Consider the Ukraine–U.S. mineral agreement, formalized in April, that establishes a Reconstruction Investment Fund drawing 50 percent of future royalties from uranium, lithium, rare-earth elements, and other critical minerals to finance postwar recovery

earth elements and other minerals needed for their manufacture.

(Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) The Biden administration earlier conceded that the United States increasingly depends on China to refine "cobalt, lithium, rare earth, and other critical minerals" for EV batteries.

—Janice Hisle BOOKMARKS Tumbling out of the Bighorn Mountains, Brook Mine will be the first new coal mine to open in Wyoming in 50 years, as well as the first critical mineral and rare earth mine to open in the United States in more than 70 years.

the rare earths that manufacturers, including defense contractors, need.

earth and other strategic minerals.

Even efforts in West Virginia to extract rare earth minerals—a critical industry sector currently dominated by the CCP—cannot access capital due to the banks’ “woke” policies, he said.

The CCP has accomplished to make the United States reliant on it for critical goods such as antibiotics, PPE, and rare earth minerals.

It also a resumption in the continuing decline of the American manufacturing sector and a loss of independence for critical machinery and resources, from medical supplies to rare earth minerals. Is such a policy in America’s interests—or China’s?