Rich Lowry

In the 1960s, the conservative intellectual James Burnham wrote a book arguing that the decline of Western civilization was a self-imposed choice.

The volume, famously called “Suicide of the West,” desperately needs to be updated with an epilogue about the U.S. dependence on China for the mining and processing of rare earths, which ranks as one of the most fantastically stupid and self-damaging strategic missteps of our time.

China is exploiting its advantage in trade talks with the U.S., restricting the supply of rare earths to gain leverage.

A focus of President Trump’s just-concluded meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forging an agreement to jointly invest in critical-minerals projects. There has to be more where that comes from. The U.S. must push on all fronts to address a truly dangerous strategic vulnerability.

These materials are crucial for the manufacture of cars, smart phones, drones, medical devices and, most importantly, high-tech weapons. Something like 800 pounds of rare earths go into making an F-35.

Between 2019 and 2022, the Government Accountability Office notes, the U.S. imported more than 95% of the rare earths we consumed, overwhelmingly from China.

It’d be one thing if we had such a reliance on Norway or Canada, allied nations with which we have no prospect of a military conflict (the occasional presidential ribbing about annexation aside). Instead, of course, China is an adversary bent on surpassing the United States as a global power and is the country we are mostly likely to fight against in a potentially ruinous war.

In the 1930s, Imperial Japan imported 80% of its oil from the United States at the same time it was, insanely, on a collision course with the United States. We are repeating this dynamic, except — for no good reason — in the role of resource-starved Japan.

It’s a little like King Harold requiring the goodwill of Normandy to supply his men with shields in 1066, or Lord Nelson needing French materials to build his ships of the line in 1798.

It wasn’t so long ago, back in 1991, that the United States was the biggest supplier of rare earths. Then, China undertook a concerted, very successful effort to steal the mining and processing of rare earths out from under us. As a report in The Wall Street Journal relates, it restricted foreign involvement in mining in China. It handed out tax rebates to goose production. It bought a key U.S. rare-earths business and shipped its equipment to China. In due time, it squeezed out the U.S. rare-earths industry and has maneuvered to maintain its dominance since.

It’s been industrial policy as highly consequential geo-politics. There is no alternative but answering in kind, which the Trump administration, to its credit, is doing now.

According to Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, the administration will establish a price floor for the rare-earths industry. The defense department has taken an equity stake in our largest rare-earths miner, with more such moves anticipated. Public-private cooperation of the sort that characterized Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is necessary, as well as the relaxation of permitting and environmental restrictions.

It will take us years to make up lost ground, but with enough resources and staying power, this is a solvable problem. Friendly countries have ample supplies of rare earths. It is the processing, over which China has a near-monopoly, that is trickier; it requires specialized know-how, and it takes considerable time to build facilities. Still, we aren’t talking about a technical or logistical challenge on par with, say, the Manhattan Project.

Of all the elements of our post-Cold War vacation from history, when defense spending, geography and supply chains weren’t considered so important anymore, the outsourcing of the rare-earths industry to China was the most improvident.

If nothing else, China’s brandishing of its rare-earths weapon in the fight over trade is a cautionary signal for what might come during a more momentous conflict. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Rich Lowry is on X @RichLowry.