I remember talking with someone well over a decade ago who predicted this over Thanksgiving Dinner. The politicians decided to let Magnequench, an Indiana compa

I remember talking with someone well over a decade ago who predicted this over Thanksgiving Dinner. The politicians decided to let Magnequench, an Indiana company that made the small, very high torque rare-earth magnet servomotors you need if you want to steer missile fins, etc. get sold to China. He used to work incorporating those motors into other gear, and predicted this would come back to bite us. My understanding is the main thing keeping us from ramping up the US domestic rare earth supply chain is the cost of environmental compliance. A long term thinking DOD would have kept this in mind for National Security reasons, and funded things just to keep our supplies viable. As it is, we have vast national security stockpiles of various raw materials, but you know how well central planning worked out for the Soviets.