Updated April 17, 2025 at 13:41 PM ET
In an escalation of his dispute with global trade partners, President Trump called for the Commerce Department to look at possible security risks from America's reliance on imported "rare earth minerals."
These are a group of 17 metallic elements that are difficult to extract from the earth, but are crucial for U.S. defense. The ask comes after China curbed exports of some of those minerals as part of its retaliation against American tariffs.
China dominates the rare earth mineral market, mining about 60% of the world's total supply, and this dominance has raised concerns about supply chain security. The White House says America's dependence on imports exposes the country to "economic coercion." A shortage of rare earths, however, could impact everything from electronics and clean energy to defense and medical diagnostic equipment.
In an interview with Morning Edition, Graceline Baskaran, the director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C-based think tank focused on international public policy, said "China has an absolute dominance here."
NPR's A Martínez spoke to Baskaran about why rare earth minerals are so vital to U.S. defense and other technologies.
Note: Baskaran spoke to Morning Edition before the president ordered the security review. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
A Martínez: What minerals exactly are we talking about here? "Rare earth minerals" sound very, very space age.
Gracelin Baskaran: Rare earth minerals are actually a misnomer, because they're not rare. They're actually found everywhere, but in very small quantities in a lot of places. There are two types of rare earths — light rare earth and heavy rare earth — and they're categorized by literally their weight. Now, these restrictions are targeted at heavy rare earths. The difficulty is that China actually processes nearly 100% of these, which means not only do they mine them, but they source heavy rare earths from around the world, bring them back and separate them. So they take the actual rare earths out of the rest of the rock in China, which makes the rest of the world highly vulnerable to any restrictions that they place.
Martínez: Is China pretty much the kingpin on rare earth minerals?
Baskaran: China has absolute dominance here.
Martínez: And what does the U.S. military use rare earth minerals for?
Baskaran: Rare earths are used in almost every form of defense technology, from warships and fighter jets to missiles, lasers and tanks. To understand just how much of them we use in a F-35 fighter jet, we use about 900 lbs of rare earth elements.
Martínez: Is the U.S. looking at a situation where they might have to stop building things for its defense?
Baskaran: The U.S. does have capabilities. However, we are very late to the game. We have actually given out over $400 million through the Defense Production Act to build those operation facilities here in the United States, but the difficulty is that mining and processing is a long term effort. We can't just build that overnight. The second thing is, we do have stockpiles in the U.S. And this is not a ban on rare earths, but a question of access to them. China is making companies apply for a license to export these materials, but we don't expect this to be a transparent process. While China works out that licensing process, we will have a pause, and the hope is that our stockpiles will tide us over. But ultimately, if China wants to make these restrictions more strict, for example, by putting in a ban that would potentially cause disruption to both military and civil use. I mean, rare earths are in your MRI scanners and your PET scanners, for example.
Martínez: Are these restrictions impactful enough that China could force the U.S. to back down from tariffs?
Baskaran: It's a very powerful negotiating tool that China has. At the end of the day, the U.S. is going to have to make a decision on whether it's going to continue its tariff trajectory with China, but at the cost of the very minerals that we need for our national security, our economic competitiveness and our energy resilience. They are in semiconductors, iPhones and most forms of energy technology as well.
Ally Schweitzer edited this story for radio.
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