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I used to work on a DoD special project that required rare earths that we could only get from China and we had to write a monthly memo about the risk to our $10

I used to work on a DoD special project that required rare earths that we could only get from China and we had to write a monthly memo about the risk to our $10B program that China would just stop selling it to us. The problem boiled down to the Chinese government buying out and shutting down any competitors anywhere in the world, plus Congress requiring the DoD to go with the lowest cost, which was always China. We knew what the problem was, we made the problem clear, no one did anything about it. Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually.

mothballed 1y ago
I'm shocked DoD doesn't have straw buyers in friendly (or neutral) 3rd party countries to deal with that possibility.
- dgfitz 1y ago
  I’m shocked you thought the government was ever functional enough to do something like that.
  - j-bos 1y ago
    They used to, iirc that's how they sourced the titanium used in the b2 bombers, which was mined in the ussr.
    - selectodude 1y ago
      A-12 Oxcart
    - Enginerrrd 1y ago
      I think that was the SR-71, but yeah.
    - MegaButts 1y ago
      They got the titanium from the Soviet Union, so not exactly an ally. The US just lied about using it for pizza ovens instead of jets.
  - estimator7292 1y ago
    The US government was pretty decent up until ~50-100 years ago. Pretty standard, functional democracy. Lots of money and effort spent on improving the physical and social environment for the betterment of the people. You know, normal, expected stuff from a functioning government.
    - themafia 1y ago
      To me it was WW2 and the lingering "intelligence apparatus" it spawned. We went from using our resources for national security and started using it to steal banana plantation land and contracts in South America. It went from a necessary evil to a clandestine service available to the highest bidder.
      - rurban 1y ago
        Yes, it was Franklin Roosevelts declining health and death the fascists took over. They already brought Hitler to power, and from then on took over their state. They planned, but didn't need their Business Plot.
    - reenorap 1y ago
      Up until the US went into debt to fund the arms race, things were great. Now that there's so much debt and unfettered financial engineering by Wall Street, the idea we can get get back to "the American Dream is a home with a white picket fence" is impossible.
      - cogman10 1y ago
        "The American Dream" was made possible by government spending to subsidize home purchases. The 1950s housing act. America was great when the pocket books of the government were open to public spending and funded primarily by high taxes on the rich. In the 1950s the top marginal tax rate was 90%. What made america great was taxing the hell out of the rich and big business to the point where they'd rather invest in their employees and companies. That's what drove the innovation and quality of life improvements throughout the 50s and 60s. We abandoned that in the late 70s onwards because of an economic downturn that hit everyone. Rather than just powering through it we went with "Let's just tear down everything" and now we are dealing with what the government was like in the gilded age of the 1920s. Stories of corruption, corporate capture, and scandal are nearly identical to what we see today. We need a new deal.
- daedrdev 1y ago
  nope, china has 90% of the market, and some of the rest are probably just secretly from china
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Sure but I presume China will still want to sell stuff, even if not to the US. After it leaves their borders it's not super likely they can have an effective control on the chain of custody. What I'm referring to is diversion from foreign commerce.
    - jimnotgym 1y ago
      IDK, China are requiring a license to export magnets, and I hear it is not easy to get
    - MisterTea 1y ago
      I think its reasonable to assume the US demand is so large that any laundering of resources can not be disguised easily simply due to the quantity. Countries with sudden spikes in demand with no way to explain the need for the demand will be suspect.
- reenorap 1y ago
  There is nothing rare about rare earth minerals. The only thing is that it's expensive to extract them by American workers vs Chinese workers which is why all the business went to China. The prices will have to go up in order for it to be "worth it" but now that it's a national security issue, maybe more effort will be put into this.
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    it's always been a national security issue and I don't understand why it took the election of this chucklefuck to change things it's the same shit with high fructose corn syrup! everyone hates that shit, why did it take the Great Orange Menace (not to be confused with this website, the other Great Orange Menace) to get companies to realize that? I know that bringing up HFCS here is a big digression; there are probably better examples. It's just another "broken clock is right twice a day" issue from the current admin that is so obviously popular that I don't understand why it was never an issue before.
    - isk517 1y ago
      Most likely because America has been in a political dead lock for the last 2 decades. Everything supported by one party is rejected by the other, everything that would benefit one state is a detriment to another, everything that would benefit the masses are extremely rejected by very load minorities. There is a strong man in charge pushing every button to see what happens, in the course of things it will turn out that at least one or two of them were far overdue to be pushed.
      - reenorap 1y ago
        It wasn't that they were fighting each other, they were working in concert with each other, like a dance. If the Dems say one thing, the Republicans say the opposite and vice versa, because they knew it would keep both of them in power. Now we have a true Agent of Chaos in charge that doesn't heed any of the previous rules and us peons will have to deal with the fallout from that. The biggest negative repercussions is that both the Republicans and the Democrats will be completely emboldened to do whatever they want now and we are going to suffer because neither party gives a fuck about us, they only care about maintaining their own power.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  Ever wonder why there was a sudden spike in antimony, gallium, and germanium shipments from Thailand - a country that does not produce either of the 3 at scale - this summer? That said, much like smuggled GPUs - it is difficult to transship an export controlled material at scale.
- iancmceachern 1y ago
  There is historical precedent for this. As I understand it the US was only able to make the SR71s by sourcing Soviet titanium for the airframe in this manner.
  - Tangurena2 1y ago
    Titanium is a fascinating metal. You can't refine it in anything close to the manner you refine every other metal. It oxidizes hundreds of degrees lower than the melting point (and Titanium Oxide is a brilliant white powder that makes paint so much brighter). Likewise, you can't try to melt it in a nitrogen-only environment because that too turns it all into TiN (a hard gold-colored ceramic material used to coat metal). It is one of those very complicated refining processes that give this electrical engineer headaches trying to follow the chemical reactions. So if you every have one of those thought experiments about traveling back in time and "inventing" steel (or gunpowder or penicillin or overthrowing the Roman Empire) hundreds of years earlier, forget about titanium because commercial scaled production couldn't happen until the 20th Century. 0 - https://www.titaniumprocessingcenter.com/titanium-history-developments-and-applications/ https://www.titaniumprocessingcenter.com/titanium-history-de...
    - iancmceachern 1y ago
      Totally, aluminum is similar
- jm4 1y ago
  Of course they do. The SR-71 was built with Russian titanium that the Russians believed was going to be used in pizza ovens. There’s no reason to think schemes like that ever stopped. Or that that was the first time. My guess is most countries have been doing it for as long as they have been trading.
  - zdragnar 1y ago
    China has vastly stricter controls in place now than SU did back then. Not impossible, but much harder.
- Animats 1y ago
  They do. DoD made a deal with MP Minerals (Mountain Pass, CA) in 2024. DoD will buy rare earths at a guaranteed price which is well above the world price.[1] This followed a 2021 deal with General Motors to insure GM's magnet supply.[2] That resulted in building a modest magnet plant in an industrial park in Texas, using MP Minerals ore. This deal expanded in 2025, with DoD taking a majority stake in MP Minerals.[3] The history here is that the price goes up and down so much that the Mountain Pass mine has been shut down twice since the 1990s. There were two bankruptcies. The most recent glut and price crash was in 2015.[4] The process has four steps: 1) mining, 2) beneficiation, where mixed rare earth ores are separated out, 3) chemical separation, where the individual rare earths are separated, and 4) magnet metal making. For years, 3) wasn't done in the US, and MP Minerals was shipping ore to China for processing. [1] https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/20/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-takes-further-action-to-strengthen-and-secure-critical-mineral-supply-chains/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statement... [2] https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/general-motors-and-mp-materials-enter-long-term-supply-agreement https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/g... [3] https://mpmaterials.com/news/mp-materials-announces-transformational-public-private-partnership-with-the-department-of-defense-to-accelerate-u-s-rare-earth-magnet-independence https://mpmaterials.com/news/mp-materials-announces-transfor... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_Materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_Materials
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    Commenter meant straw buyers as in buyers of Chinese rare earths that do so at the behest of the US DoD while under the guise of buying the metals for their own use internal to whatever country they are based in.
    - Animats 1y ago
      Doesn't work. China's export controls on rare earths are product-based, not country based. You can buy motors, but not magnets.
      - 1y ago
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  > friendly (or neutral) 3rd party countries Well... In 2024 there were things like that.
gjsman-1000 1y ago
The idea behind DOGE made a mountain of sense, even if the execution was all over the place. Americans get sympathetic when they hear about the Air Force $1280 coffee mug. They don't forget that, even half a decade later, when they hear the word "waste." Apple's monitor stand has better build quality than what it's known for. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/23/air-force-puts-the-kibosh-on-the-1300-coffee-cup/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/23...
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  That's not even the real waste in DOD. The real waste is mostly in failed projects. Projects that either never deliver, or deliver years late and millions or billions over budget, typically with reduced features. They'd have to buy a million of those hot cups to come close to the waste that occurs due to these failed projects. DOGE never seriously tried, or even discussed, tackling that problem.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    I'm not disputing it; but the downvoters missed my point. My point is that voters know that if a mere coffee mug costs that much, who knows what else stupid is going on. It's a smoke signal saying there's waste of unprecedented amounts everywhere.
    - bdamm 1y ago
      It is even deeper than that. The problem is that voters do not have faith in the organizations created to oversee and regulate government waste. Perhaps there isn't enough visibility. Or maybe the typical shenanigans that commenters love to harp on hides the actual good work that public servants sometimes do in managing the public purse. So as with most political challenges, it all comes down to trust, and a failure to garner it. The lack of trust then creates the vaccuum into which silly notions of thinking a coffee cup is worth a grand, or an ashtray is tens of thousands of dollars, or the magic hammer that is the same as a normal hammer but costs 100x, or whatever.
bjourne 1y ago
It is not realistic to expect a modern supply chain to be completely uninterruptible. The US has large stockpiles of (not very) rare earth metals and there are multiple ways of acquiring them in case China stops exporting. If China ever embargoes rare earth metals, the US can embargo Windows updates. Who do you think will last the longest?
- Anarch157a 1y ago
  It's much easier to smuggle a USB drive with Windows updates than it is a few tonnes of metal. Then China will switch a billion desktops to Linux and the US will still need rare earths.
  - stickfigure 1y ago
    > Then China will switch a billion desktops to Linux Easier than smuggling a few tonnes of metal? Let me introduce you to my elderly parents...
    - deadfoxygrandpa 1y ago
      old people in china don't have computers, they use smart phones
  - mothballed 1y ago
    If all the US needs is a few tonnes the cartels can get it done no problem.
  - rat87 1y ago
    I run desktop Linux. It's pretty hard to switch a billion desktops to Linux even if you do it one at a time. Not to mention a ton of problems with compatibility and corporate and government IT
    - wakawaka28 1y ago
      The Chinese pirate Windows extensively, and the code has been leaked before. If IP law goes out the window, they will do whatever the hell they want.
rat87 1y ago
> Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually. Of course it's not. Imagine how difficult it will be to rebuild things to function half as well after all the corruption and disruption with less money
- cogman10 1y ago
  Right, especially since we've made anyone that knows anything in the government unemployed. It'll be almost impossible to hire back even a small portion of the experts in 3 years. It's going to be a rough couple of decades.
somanyphotons 1y ago
I'm sure Australia would be happy to supply for a slight premium
- yard2010 1y ago
  No free country can compete
- alephnerd 1y ago
  That's the plan as part of the Minerals Security Partnership - US, Japanese, Korean, Emirati, EU, and other members capital would go into Australian, Canadian, and other countries with large enough deposits to build an ex-China supply chain. The current admin has made it rocky, but the rest of the countries are still participating in it.
evanjrowley 1y ago
It's amazing how the general public seems to think people involved with the bureaucracy would never support cuts and downsizing. They should get a moral compass and try working there for a while.
- throw10920 1y ago
  Yes, and here's some nuance: based on my experience, the majority of the people in the bureaucracy want it to be more efficient. To effect cuts, you can either cut the budget without improving efficiency, leading to a loss of scope (which is what the current administration is doing, and is not great), or you can keep your scope while improving your efficiency such that you don't need as much money, which is vastly preferable. Those in the general public who thinks that government budgets should increase monotonically are a linear combination between total idiots and outright politically malicious.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - bratbag 1y ago
    The majority of obese people want to be thin, but will die obese anyway. Just wanting something that requires a significant overhaul of how you do things, is not enough.
    - paddleon 1y ago
      better analogy: the majority of fouix-gras birds would prefer not to be force-fed and caged. The people working in the bureaucracy do not have the authority to overhaul it.
      - parineum 1y ago
        The people working in the bureaucracy chose to be there. Bureaucracies self select for people that are okay with it. I'm sure there's a few who are there to change it from the inside but they are the exception. You're not going to find a lot of vegans working in a meat packing plant.
btreecat 1y ago
> Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually. My house was so difficult to walk through with the years of stuff piled up. Much easier now that it's all been burned to the ground!
- turkishdelight 1y ago
  Actually...that sort of works.
  - btreecat 1y ago
    > Actually...that sort of works. Not if you need a house
- lmm 1y ago
  > My house was so difficult to walk through with the years of stuff piled up. Much easier now that it's all been burned to the ground! For anyone who's dealt with a hoarder house that's not the reducto ad absurdum you think it is, just the tragic reality.
  - throwaway3b03 1y ago
    I'm that hoarder, and granted, not in terminal stage, but enough to severely impact my quality of life. And I disagree, I think it would take me two days to clear out the house, but mostly lack the energy and motivation to do it. So no, burning down the house would be way way worse.
    - nlitened 1y ago
      > And I disagree, I think it would take me two days to clear out the house, but mostly lack the energy and motivation to do it Likely you’re psychologically unable to ever do it, but it’s comforting to have this convenient lie. There’s only one way to know.
      - lazide 1y ago
thrance 1y ago
DoD? You mean the DoW?
- defrost 1y ago
  Still the DoD ... A September 2025 executive order authorized the usage of "Department of War" as a secondary name. Department of Defense remains the legal name. Even had the primary name legally changed the Department of Defense would still be the correct name of the organization at the time that @thisisnotauser worked for it.
  - thrance 1y ago
    Ya, it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek remark on my part. I don't agree with much of what this administration does, but I still think "Department of War" is more honest of a name for this institution.
    - defrost 1y ago
      Fair enough .. I hope for the US's sake it doesn't merge with the DoHS to wage war on the 'wrong type' of US citizen ... (now designated terrorists). 'Active clubs' are on the rise - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/active-clubs-charlie-kirk-killing-new-members https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/active-clubs...
perihelions 1y ago
I don't see it. I don't see what this Administration has done to erode China's rare earth monopoly; or actions that could erode it in the future. They've spent a lot of brain cells[0] on the opposite: on trying to convince China to continue exporting rare earths to the US (in clownishly inept ways). Trump's signature accomplishment is to unintentionally convince China to enact a total ban[1,2] on the exports of several rare-earths (and some other minerals)—something he didn't predict, and is now trying to undo. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/trump-tariffs-china-rare-earth-magnets-exports.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/trump-tariffs-china-rare-ear... ("Trump threatened 200% tariffs on China if Beijing does not export rare-earth magnets to the U.S.") [1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-bans-exports-gallium-germanium-antimony-us-2024-12-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-bans-expor... ("China bans export of critical minerals to US as trade tensions escalate") [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/business/china-rare-earth-samarium-fighter-jets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/business/china-rare-earth... ("China’s Grip on [Samarium] Threatens the West’s Militaries")
- alephnerd 1y ago
  It's not just the US. China has blockaded the entire West (EU, UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia) and non-China aligned countries (India) access to rare earths. The EU, UK, and India are working on scaling out EESM production and Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India are working on building an ExChina processing and supply chain for a number of materials. This played a role in the recent Japanese pledge to invest $60B in India and transfer processing tech IP to Indian firms.
  - hearsathought 1y ago
    > the entire West (EU, UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia) Japan and South Korea are not western nations and hence not part of the west. > This played a role in the recent Japanese pledge to invest $60B in India and transfer processing tech IP to Indian firms. Think it had more to do with the US forcing Japan to join its trade war against china. Don't you?
    - 1y ago
raincole 1y ago
> We knew what the problem was, we made the problem clear, no one did anything about it. (Insert here a logical gap wider than the ocean between the US and where the rare earth is produced) > Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually.
micromacrofoot 1y ago
accelerationism often looks appealing as long as if you're willing to ignore the people it will kill
e40 1y ago
And some number of years ago, the government restarted a rare earth ore processing plant (somewhere in the west, like CO... I forget). Of course, after a year or two, the will to maintain it (because it was operating at a loss) evaporated and it went under. Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China because of an extortion incident between the two... they process the ore in far off places (Australia and other places), before importing the final products. The issue is that the US is (and has been for some time) mired in short-term thinking. The short term being how to win the next election, not how to solve problems. Of course, now, the problems being solved aren't really ones that people want, unless you are rich already.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China Nope. They are still dependent on transshipment via Thailand or processing in 3rd countries like India or Vietnam. Heck, Toyota's India JV has been halted [0] from exporting processed rare earths to Japan from India right now because China has blockaded Indian access [1] to rare earths which China promised to remove recently but still hasn't [2], which lead to India blocking it's export of REEs. And people wonder why countries have continued to engage with the US despite Trump. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-moves-conserve-its-rare-earths-seeks-halt-japan-exports-sources-say-2025-06-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-moves-conserve-its... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitigate-disruptions-due-chinas-rare-earth-curbs-2025-06-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig... [2] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250916VL202/tata-group-rare-earth-wafer-fab-production.html https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250916VL202/tata-group-rar...
  - MichaelZuo 1y ago
    Toyota intentionally tried to use India as a shield and drag it into intrigues with China over rare earths? That’s pretty big news if true.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      India wasn't dragged into intrigue by Japan. India was blockaded by China BECAUSE Japan (and South Korea) are working on building an ExChina supply chain for REE processing within India, and becuase Taiwan has begun moving it's dual use ESM chain to India [0][1]. A lot of India-Taiwan military collaboration is occuring at IIT Ropar [2], which has become a de facto hub for Indian defense tech [3] (most of their "AI" research is tracking and C-UAS applications). Essentially, India is viewed by China as a potential competitor that needs to be nipped in the bud [5]. The Japanese government, Toyota, and the Indian government began a REE joint venture back in 2009 called Toyotsu Rare Earths India Ltd [4] that dramatically expanded after China started a trade war with Japan over the Senkaku Diaoyu islands in 2012. > That’s pretty big news if true It has been in Japan and India for months now. This is why the Indian government began a massive processing campaign over the past 1-2 years with Japanese and Korean involvement, along with a push for EESM mass production. [0] - https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4196 https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4196 [1] - https://cuashub.com/en/content/a-geopolitical-game-of-drones-taiwan-seeks-to-purchase-indias-d4-anti-drone-system/ https://cuashub.com/en/content/a-geopolitical-game-of-drones... [2] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/indo-taiwan/ https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/indo-taiwan/ [3] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/coe-sards https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/coe-sards [4] - https://trei.co.in/ https://trei.co.in/ [5] - https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cfer-2024-0023/html https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cfer-202...
nostrademons 1y ago
> plus Congress requiring the DoD to go with the lowest cost, which was always China Are second-sources no longer a thing? Going with the lowest cost is fine, but it used to be that every critical project lined up a second domestic source for its supply chain. A lot of prominent semiconductor companies (eg. AMD) got started this way.
mulmen 1y ago
I don’t see the problem. You explained the risks, leadership said they accept those risks. What was supposed to be done differently?
stirfish 1y ago
Ten billion sounds like a lot, but it's not really for an organization like the DoD that has so many projects and so much money. I bet someone above you assessed the risks and decided your project was good to run for as long as it could, but wouldn't be a crippling loss if it had to shut down. It would be like Google having to decide to keep selling Chromecasts until they can't and just stopping, or buying up the entire supply chain to secure their ability to produce Chromecasts indefinitely.
necovek 1y ago
I hear about something that does not seem to really be a problem portrayed as a problem. China did not stop selling to USA before USA decided to introduce tariffs and stopped selling to China advanced tech like GPUs and NPUs. In a sense, mutual economic dependency has worked in the past, would work in the present, but "blowing up the government" is leading to one strong-arm play after another — and really, it only leads to everybody being unhappier, and prices being higher for everything, yet the trade will continue very similar to how it did before. And really, this trade inter-dependency is really the only guarantee (if there is such a thing) of no big military conflict coming out between the two countries. And I am pretty sure that's worse.

mothballed 1y ago

I'm shocked DoD doesn't have straw buyers in friendly (or neutral) 3rd party countries to deal with that possibility.

dgfitz 1y ago
I’m shocked you thought the government was ever functional enough to do something like that.
- j-bos 1y ago
  They used to, iirc that's how they sourced the titanium used in the b2 bombers, which was mined in the ussr.
  - selectodude 1y ago
    A-12 Oxcart
  - Enginerrrd 1y ago
    I think that was the SR-71, but yeah.
  - MegaButts 1y ago
    They got the titanium from the Soviet Union, so not exactly an ally. The US just lied about using it for pizza ovens instead of jets.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  The US government was pretty decent up until ~50-100 years ago. Pretty standard, functional democracy. Lots of money and effort spent on improving the physical and social environment for the betterment of the people. You know, normal, expected stuff from a functioning government.
  - themafia 1y ago
    To me it was WW2 and the lingering "intelligence apparatus" it spawned. We went from using our resources for national security and started using it to steal banana plantation land and contracts in South America. It went from a necessary evil to a clandestine service available to the highest bidder.
    - rurban 1y ago
      Yes, it was Franklin Roosevelts declining health and death the fascists took over. They already brought Hitler to power, and from then on took over their state. They planned, but didn't need their Business Plot.
  - reenorap 1y ago
    Up until the US went into debt to fund the arms race, things were great. Now that there's so much debt and unfettered financial engineering by Wall Street, the idea we can get get back to "the American Dream is a home with a white picket fence" is impossible.
    - cogman10 1y ago
      "The American Dream" was made possible by government spending to subsidize home purchases. The 1950s housing act. America was great when the pocket books of the government were open to public spending and funded primarily by high taxes on the rich. In the 1950s the top marginal tax rate was 90%. What made america great was taxing the hell out of the rich and big business to the point where they'd rather invest in their employees and companies. That's what drove the innovation and quality of life improvements throughout the 50s and 60s. We abandoned that in the late 70s onwards because of an economic downturn that hit everyone. Rather than just powering through it we went with "Let's just tear down everything" and now we are dealing with what the government was like in the gilded age of the 1920s. Stories of corruption, corporate capture, and scandal are nearly identical to what we see today. We need a new deal.
daedrdev 1y ago
nope, china has 90% of the market, and some of the rest are probably just secretly from china
- mothballed 1y ago
  Sure but I presume China will still want to sell stuff, even if not to the US. After it leaves their borders it's not super likely they can have an effective control on the chain of custody. What I'm referring to is diversion from foreign commerce.
  - jimnotgym 1y ago
    IDK, China are requiring a license to export magnets, and I hear it is not easy to get
  - MisterTea 1y ago
    I think its reasonable to assume the US demand is so large that any laundering of resources can not be disguised easily simply due to the quantity. Countries with sudden spikes in demand with no way to explain the need for the demand will be suspect.
reenorap 1y ago
There is nothing rare about rare earth minerals. The only thing is that it's expensive to extract them by American workers vs Chinese workers which is why all the business went to China. The prices will have to go up in order for it to be "worth it" but now that it's a national security issue, maybe more effort will be put into this.
- dingnuts 1y ago
  it's always been a national security issue and I don't understand why it took the election of this chucklefuck to change things it's the same shit with high fructose corn syrup! everyone hates that shit, why did it take the Great Orange Menace (not to be confused with this website, the other Great Orange Menace) to get companies to realize that? I know that bringing up HFCS here is a big digression; there are probably better examples. It's just another "broken clock is right twice a day" issue from the current admin that is so obviously popular that I don't understand why it was never an issue before.
  - isk517 1y ago
    Most likely because America has been in a political dead lock for the last 2 decades. Everything supported by one party is rejected by the other, everything that would benefit one state is a detriment to another, everything that would benefit the masses are extremely rejected by very load minorities. There is a strong man in charge pushing every button to see what happens, in the course of things it will turn out that at least one or two of them were far overdue to be pushed.
    - reenorap 1y ago
      It wasn't that they were fighting each other, they were working in concert with each other, like a dance. If the Dems say one thing, the Republicans say the opposite and vice versa, because they knew it would keep both of them in power. Now we have a true Agent of Chaos in charge that doesn't heed any of the previous rules and us peons will have to deal with the fallout from that. The biggest negative repercussions is that both the Republicans and the Democrats will be completely emboldened to do whatever they want now and we are going to suffer because neither party gives a fuck about us, they only care about maintaining their own power.
alephnerd 1y ago
Ever wonder why there was a sudden spike in antimony, gallium, and germanium shipments from Thailand - a country that does not produce either of the 3 at scale - this summer? That said, much like smuggled GPUs - it is difficult to transship an export controlled material at scale.
iancmceachern 1y ago
There is historical precedent for this. As I understand it the US was only able to make the SR71s by sourcing Soviet titanium for the airframe in this manner.
- Tangurena2 1y ago
  Titanium is a fascinating metal. You can't refine it in anything close to the manner you refine every other metal. It oxidizes hundreds of degrees lower than the melting point (and Titanium Oxide is a brilliant white powder that makes paint so much brighter). Likewise, you can't try to melt it in a nitrogen-only environment because that too turns it all into TiN (a hard gold-colored ceramic material used to coat metal). It is one of those very complicated refining processes that give this electrical engineer headaches trying to follow the chemical reactions. So if you every have one of those thought experiments about traveling back in time and "inventing" steel (or gunpowder or penicillin or overthrowing the Roman Empire) hundreds of years earlier, forget about titanium because commercial scaled production couldn't happen until the 20th Century. 0 - https://www.titaniumprocessingcenter.com/titanium-history-developments-and-applications/ https://www.titaniumprocessingcenter.com/titanium-history-de...
  - iancmceachern 1y ago
    Totally, aluminum is similar
jm4 1y ago
Of course they do. The SR-71 was built with Russian titanium that the Russians believed was going to be used in pizza ovens. There’s no reason to think schemes like that ever stopped. Or that that was the first time. My guess is most countries have been doing it for as long as they have been trading.
- zdragnar 1y ago
  China has vastly stricter controls in place now than SU did back then. Not impossible, but much harder.
Animats 1y ago
They do. DoD made a deal with MP Minerals (Mountain Pass, CA) in 2024. DoD will buy rare earths at a guaranteed price which is well above the world price.[1] This followed a 2021 deal with General Motors to insure GM's magnet supply.[2] That resulted in building a modest magnet plant in an industrial park in Texas, using MP Minerals ore. This deal expanded in 2025, with DoD taking a majority stake in MP Minerals.[3] The history here is that the price goes up and down so much that the Mountain Pass mine has been shut down twice since the 1990s. There were two bankruptcies. The most recent glut and price crash was in 2015.[4] The process has four steps: 1) mining, 2) beneficiation, where mixed rare earth ores are separated out, 3) chemical separation, where the individual rare earths are separated, and 4) magnet metal making. For years, 3) wasn't done in the US, and MP Minerals was shipping ore to China for processing. [1] https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/20/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-takes-further-action-to-strengthen-and-secure-critical-mineral-supply-chains/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statement... [2] https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/general-motors-and-mp-materials-enter-long-term-supply-agreement https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/g... [3] https://mpmaterials.com/news/mp-materials-announces-transformational-public-private-partnership-with-the-department-of-defense-to-accelerate-u-s-rare-earth-magnet-independence https://mpmaterials.com/news/mp-materials-announces-transfor... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_Materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_Materials
- NewJazz 1y ago
  Commenter meant straw buyers as in buyers of Chinese rare earths that do so at the behest of the US DoD while under the guise of buying the metals for their own use internal to whatever country they are based in.
  - Animats 1y ago
    Doesn't work. China's export controls on rare earths are product-based, not country based. You can buy motors, but not magnets.
    - 1y ago
marcosdumay 1y ago
> friendly (or neutral) 3rd party countries Well... In 2024 there were things like that.

gjsman-1000 1y ago

The idea behind DOGE made a mountain of sense, even if the execution was all over the place. Americans get sympathetic when they hear about the Air Force $1280 coffee mug. They don't forget that, even half a decade later, when they hear the word "waste." Apple's monitor stand has better build quality than what it's known for. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/23/air-force-puts-the-kibosh-on-the-1300-coffee-cup/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/23...

Jtsummers 1y ago
That's not even the real waste in DOD. The real waste is mostly in failed projects. Projects that either never deliver, or deliver years late and millions or billions over budget, typically with reduced features. They'd have to buy a million of those hot cups to come close to the waste that occurs due to these failed projects. DOGE never seriously tried, or even discussed, tackling that problem.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  I'm not disputing it; but the downvoters missed my point. My point is that voters know that if a mere coffee mug costs that much, who knows what else stupid is going on. It's a smoke signal saying there's waste of unprecedented amounts everywhere.
  - bdamm 1y ago
    It is even deeper than that. The problem is that voters do not have faith in the organizations created to oversee and regulate government waste. Perhaps there isn't enough visibility. Or maybe the typical shenanigans that commenters love to harp on hides the actual good work that public servants sometimes do in managing the public purse. So as with most political challenges, it all comes down to trust, and a failure to garner it. The lack of trust then creates the vaccuum into which silly notions of thinking a coffee cup is worth a grand, or an ashtray is tens of thousands of dollars, or the magic hammer that is the same as a normal hammer but costs 100x, or whatever.

bjourne 1y ago

It is not realistic to expect a modern supply chain to be completely uninterruptible. The US has large stockpiles of (not very) rare earth metals and there are multiple ways of acquiring them in case China stops exporting. If China ever embargoes rare earth metals, the US can embargo Windows updates. Who do you think will last the longest?

Anarch157a 1y ago
It's much easier to smuggle a USB drive with Windows updates than it is a few tonnes of metal. Then China will switch a billion desktops to Linux and the US will still need rare earths.
- stickfigure 1y ago
  > Then China will switch a billion desktops to Linux Easier than smuggling a few tonnes of metal? Let me introduce you to my elderly parents...
  - deadfoxygrandpa 1y ago
    old people in china don't have computers, they use smart phones
- mothballed 1y ago
  If all the US needs is a few tonnes the cartels can get it done no problem.
- rat87 1y ago
  I run desktop Linux. It's pretty hard to switch a billion desktops to Linux even if you do it one at a time. Not to mention a ton of problems with compatibility and corporate and government IT
  - wakawaka28 1y ago
    The Chinese pirate Windows extensively, and the code has been leaked before. If IP law goes out the window, they will do whatever the hell they want.

rat87 1y ago

> Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually. Of course it's not. Imagine how difficult it will be to rebuild things to function half as well after all the corruption and disruption with less money

cogman10 1y ago
Right, especially since we've made anyone that knows anything in the government unemployed. It'll be almost impossible to hire back even a small portion of the experts in 3 years. It's going to be a rough couple of decades.

somanyphotons 1y ago

I'm sure Australia would be happy to supply for a slight premium

yard2010 1y ago
No free country can compete
alephnerd 1y ago
That's the plan as part of the Minerals Security Partnership - US, Japanese, Korean, Emirati, EU, and other members capital would go into Australian, Canadian, and other countries with large enough deposits to build an ex-China supply chain. The current admin has made it rocky, but the rest of the countries are still participating in it.

evanjrowley 1y ago

It's amazing how the general public seems to think people involved with the bureaucracy would never support cuts and downsizing. They should get a moral compass and try working there for a while.

throw10920 1y ago
Yes, and here's some nuance: based on my experience, the majority of the people in the bureaucracy want it to be more efficient. To effect cuts, you can either cut the budget without improving efficiency, leading to a loss of scope (which is what the current administration is doing, and is not great), or you can keep your scope while improving your efficiency such that you don't need as much money, which is vastly preferable. Those in the general public who thinks that government budgets should increase monotonically are a linear combination between total idiots and outright politically malicious.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bratbag 1y ago
  The majority of obese people want to be thin, but will die obese anyway. Just wanting something that requires a significant overhaul of how you do things, is not enough.
  - paddleon 1y ago
    better analogy: the majority of fouix-gras birds would prefer not to be force-fed and caged. The people working in the bureaucracy do not have the authority to overhaul it.
    - parineum 1y ago
      The people working in the bureaucracy chose to be there. Bureaucracies self select for people that are okay with it. I'm sure there's a few who are there to change it from the inside but they are the exception. You're not going to find a lot of vegans working in a meat packing plant.

btreecat 1y ago

> Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually. My house was so difficult to walk through with the years of stuff piled up. Much easier now that it's all been burned to the ground!

turkishdelight 1y ago
Actually...that sort of works.
- btreecat 1y ago
  > Actually...that sort of works. Not if you need a house
lmm 1y ago
> My house was so difficult to walk through with the years of stuff piled up. Much easier now that it's all been burned to the ground! For anyone who's dealt with a hoarder house that's not the reducto ad absurdum you think it is, just the tragic reality.
- throwaway3b03 1y ago
  I'm that hoarder, and granted, not in terminal stage, but enough to severely impact my quality of life. And I disagree, I think it would take me two days to clear out the house, but mostly lack the energy and motivation to do it. So no, burning down the house would be way way worse.
  - nlitened 1y ago
    > And I disagree, I think it would take me two days to clear out the house, but mostly lack the energy and motivation to do it Likely you’re psychologically unable to ever do it, but it’s comforting to have this convenient lie. There’s only one way to know.
    - lazide 1y ago

thrance 1y ago

DoD? You mean the DoW?

defrost 1y ago
Still the DoD ... A September 2025 executive order authorized the usage of "Department of War" as a secondary name. Department of Defense remains the legal name. Even had the primary name legally changed the Department of Defense would still be the correct name of the organization at the time that @thisisnotauser worked for it.
- thrance 1y ago
  Ya, it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek remark on my part. I don't agree with much of what this administration does, but I still think "Department of War" is more honest of a name for this institution.
  - defrost 1y ago
    Fair enough .. I hope for the US's sake it doesn't merge with the DoHS to wage war on the 'wrong type' of US citizen ... (now designated terrorists). 'Active clubs' are on the rise - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/active-clubs-charlie-kirk-killing-new-members https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/active-clubs...

perihelions 1y ago

I don't see it. I don't see what this Administration has done to erode China's rare earth monopoly; or actions that could erode it in the future. They've spent a lot of brain cells[0] on the opposite: on trying to convince China to continue exporting rare earths to the US (in clownishly inept ways). Trump's signature accomplishment is to unintentionally convince China to enact a total ban[1,2] on the exports of several rare-earths (and some other minerals)—something he didn't predict, and is now trying to undo. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/trump-tariffs-china-rare-earth-magnets-exports.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/trump-tariffs-china-rare-ear... ("Trump threatened 200% tariffs on China if Beijing does not export rare-earth magnets to the U.S.") [1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-bans-exports-gallium-germanium-antimony-us-2024-12-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-bans-expor... ("China bans export of critical minerals to US as trade tensions escalate") [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/business/china-rare-earth-samarium-fighter-jets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/business/china-rare-earth... ("China’s Grip on [Samarium] Threatens the West’s Militaries")

alephnerd 1y ago
It's not just the US. China has blockaded the entire West (EU, UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia) and non-China aligned countries (India) access to rare earths. The EU, UK, and India are working on scaling out EESM production and Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India are working on building an ExChina processing and supply chain for a number of materials. This played a role in the recent Japanese pledge to invest $60B in India and transfer processing tech IP to Indian firms.
- hearsathought 1y ago
  > the entire West (EU, UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia) Japan and South Korea are not western nations and hence not part of the west. > This played a role in the recent Japanese pledge to invest $60B in India and transfer processing tech IP to Indian firms. Think it had more to do with the US forcing Japan to join its trade war against china. Don't you?
  - 1y ago

raincole 1y ago

> We knew what the problem was, we made the problem clear, no one did anything about it. (Insert here a logical gap wider than the ocean between the US and where the rare earth is produced) > Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually.

micromacrofoot 1y ago

accelerationism often looks appealing as long as if you're willing to ignore the people it will kill

e40 1y ago

And some number of years ago, the government restarted a rare earth ore processing plant (somewhere in the west, like CO... I forget). Of course, after a year or two, the will to maintain it (because it was operating at a loss) evaporated and it went under. Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China because of an extortion incident between the two... they process the ore in far off places (Australia and other places), before importing the final products. The issue is that the US is (and has been for some time) mired in short-term thinking. The short term being how to win the next election, not how to solve problems. Of course, now, the problems being solved aren't really ones that people want, unless you are rich already.

alephnerd 1y ago
> Japan broke their habit of buying rare earths from China Nope. They are still dependent on transshipment via Thailand or processing in 3rd countries like India or Vietnam. Heck, Toyota's India JV has been halted [0] from exporting processed rare earths to Japan from India right now because China has blockaded Indian access [1] to rare earths which China promised to remove recently but still hasn't [2], which lead to India blocking it's export of REEs. And people wonder why countries have continued to engage with the US despite Trump. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-moves-conserve-its-rare-earths-seeks-halt-japan-exports-sources-say-2025-06-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-moves-conserve-its... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitigate-disruptions-due-chinas-rare-earth-curbs-2025-06-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig... [2] - https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250916VL202/tata-group-rare-earth-wafer-fab-production.html https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20250916VL202/tata-group-rar...
- MichaelZuo 1y ago
  Toyota intentionally tried to use India as a shield and drag it into intrigues with China over rare earths? That’s pretty big news if true.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    India wasn't dragged into intrigue by Japan. India was blockaded by China BECAUSE Japan (and South Korea) are working on building an ExChina supply chain for REE processing within India, and becuase Taiwan has begun moving it's dual use ESM chain to India [0][1]. A lot of India-Taiwan military collaboration is occuring at IIT Ropar [2], which has become a de facto hub for Indian defense tech [3] (most of their "AI" research is tracking and C-UAS applications). Essentially, India is viewed by China as a potential competitor that needs to be nipped in the bud [5]. The Japanese government, Toyota, and the Indian government began a REE joint venture back in 2009 called Toyotsu Rare Earths India Ltd [4] that dramatically expanded after China started a trade war with Japan over the Senkaku Diaoyu islands in 2012. > That’s pretty big news if true It has been in Japan and India for months now. This is why the Indian government began a massive processing campaign over the past 1-2 years with Japanese and Korean involvement, along with a push for EESM mass production. [0] - https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4196 https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4196 [1] - https://cuashub.com/en/content/a-geopolitical-game-of-drones-taiwan-seeks-to-purchase-indias-d4-anti-drone-system/ https://cuashub.com/en/content/a-geopolitical-game-of-drones... [2] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/indo-taiwan/ https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/indo-taiwan/ [3] - https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/coe-sards https://www.iitrpr.ac.in/coe-sards [4] - https://trei.co.in/ https://trei.co.in/ [5] - https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cfer-2024-0023/html https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cfer-202...

nostrademons 1y ago

> plus Congress requiring the DoD to go with the lowest cost, which was always China Are second-sources no longer a thing? Going with the lowest cost is fine, but it used to be that every critical project lined up a second domestic source for its supply chain. A lot of prominent semiconductor companies (eg. AMD) got started this way.

mulmen 1y ago

I don’t see the problem. You explained the risks, leadership said they accept those risks. What was supposed to be done differently?

stirfish 1y ago

Ten billion sounds like a lot, but it's not really for an organization like the DoD that has so many projects and so much money. I bet someone above you assessed the risks and decided your project was good to run for as long as it could, but wouldn't be a crippling loss if it had to shut down. It would be like Google having to decide to keep selling Chromecasts until they can't and just stopping, or buying up the entire supply chain to secure their ability to produce Chromecasts indefinitely.

necovek 1y ago

I hear about something that does not seem to really be a problem portrayed as a problem. China did not stop selling to USA before USA decided to introduce tariffs and stopped selling to China advanced tech like GPUs and NPUs. In a sense, mutual economic dependency has worked in the past, would work in the present, but "blowing up the government" is leading to one strong-arm play after another — and really, it only leads to everybody being unhappier, and prices being higher for everything, yet the trade will continue very similar to how it did before. And really, this trade inter-dependency is really the only guarantee (if there is such a thing) of no big military conflict coming out between the two countries. And I am pretty sure that's worse.