Critical Minerals and the Trade War for National Security

America’s Military Capacity Depends on China

As I mentioned in a recent video (which has garnered over 300,000 views - thank you!), Washington has found itself in a predicament: its vulnerability has been exposed for the entire world to see. China controls approximately 78 percent of the rare earth minerals essential for supporting the production of over 1,900 weapon systems in the United States. In a great power competition, such dependency is a vulnerable weakness for one side, and significant leverage for the other.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the latest research that proves just how dependent the United States military is on China. First, we’ll examine the broader context, and later, we will focus on the military-industrial aspect.

Just days before the upcoming high-stakes Xi–Trump summit in South Korea, Beijing has unveiled sweeping new export restrictions on rare earth elements, lithium-ion batteries, graphite, and synthetic diamonds. These materials underpin everything from electric vehicles to advanced U.S. weapon systems.

Ironically, America relies heavily on China for its supply of rare earth minerals. The United States procures nearly 70 percent of rare earth minerals from China, followed by 13 percent from Malaysia and 6 percent from Japan.

Although the U.S. has vast resources of its own, the lack of processing facilities and related infrastructure has put Washington in a difficult position. A map, created by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of the Interior, indicates that there are more than 800 areas identified by researchers as geological systems containing 23 types of minerals in the U.S., some of which could be rare earth elements. While America has access to these deposits through extraction, the downstream processing is almost entirely dependent on China.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey. A map identifying focus areas for 23 mineral systems that could host critical mineral resources in the U.S.

China’s dominance in rare earths is unmatched. It is home to a third of the world’s rare earth mineral deposits and produces approximately 70 percent of the global supply, holding nearly half of the known reserves.

However, more critically, it controls over 90 percent of global refining capacity — the stage at which raw minerals are transformed into usable components for high-tech and military applications. China dominates all stages of many critical mineral supply chains due to a strategic model that relies on consistent state support of the industry. Even nations that mine rare earths, like Australia or Canada, rely on China for processing.