Just as an aside, while the developed world is worried about rare earths and China's monopoly, I wonder why no one is investing in Vietnam, where they have the

Just as an aside, while the developed world is worried about rare earths and China's monopoly, I wonder why no one is investing in Vietnam, where they have the second largest deposit and have been producing rare earths for years? In fact, some contacts there have said that their biggest concern is not mining and production, but rather having long-term and stable sales contracts. Of course, demand fluctuates and the market price is not stable. Large scale mining is capital intensive and prone to pollution. But is there more to it? I dig a little deeper and find out that in 2022 the USGS estimated the rare earth deposits in Vietnam to be around 22 million (metric) tons, but in 2024 reduced its estimate to only 3.5 million tons. A reduction of almost 10 times points to the problem here: nobody knows for sure how much is really there, which makes large investments very risky. I think the situation is the same elsewhere. And that makes Trump's craze with rare earths a bit suspect. [1] https://pubs.usgs.gov/myb/vol3/2022/myb3-2022-vietnam.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/myb/vol3/2022/myb3-2022-vietnam.pdf [2] https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/critical-metals-investing/rare-earth-investing/rare-earth-reserves-country/ https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/critical-...