Highlights
- Trump’s executive order targets establishing rare earth mineral refining facilities on Pentagon-controlled military bases.
- The objective is to challenge China’s global mineral processing dominance.
- The initiative faces significant challenges, including:
- Complex refining technologies
- Environmental regulations
- Limited domestic expertise in rare earth element processing
- The plan signals intent to reduce foreign mineral dependence.
- It does not comprehensively address the full spectrum of supply chain independence.
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order aiming to build rare earth and critical minerals refining facilities on Pentagon-controlled military bases. The initiative seeks to reduce U.S. dependence on China, which dominates the global critical minerals processing industry. These minerals are essential for military applications, including fighter jets, submarines, and munitions. Recent media coverage downplays the steep climb the U.S. faces to truly achieve rare earth element (REE) resilience. The president, at least, is taking a step in the right direction.
The plan does not include establishing a U.S. critical minerals stockpile or imposing a “Buy American” mandate for government procurement. It also does not attempt to overhaul the federal mine permitting process, instead opting to expand the FAST-41 (opens in a new tab) permitting process to accelerate project approvals.
According to Reuters (opens in a new tab), Trump also aims to reclassify mine waste to extract previously overlooked resources like copper and other critical minerals more efficiently.
While this move addresses some concerns about the supply chain vulnerabilities in critical minerals, it remains unclear how regulatory hurdles under environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act will be managed on Pentagon bases.
Challenges
The U.S. lacks large-scale, commercially viable rare earth refining facilities. Building new ones requires specialized technology and expertise, which China has developed over decades.
While setting up facilities on Pentagon land may bypass some public opposition, refining rare earth elements is highly polluting. U.S. environmental laws could still pose significant challenges as they apply to military bases as well.
Building a rare earth refinery is not simply a matter of building a facility. The process is highly technical and requires advanced knowledge in chemistry, engineering, and materials science.
REEs are typically found in ore mixed with other metals and minerals, and their separation involves a complex sequence of chemical reactions, high-temperature processes, and precise control mechanisms.
The key challenges include the following:
| Process Challenge | Summary |
|---|---|
| Ore Processing | Extracting REEs from mined ore requires extensive crushing, milling, and flotation processes before they can be chemically separated. |
| Solvent Extraction & Separation | The most commonly used method, solvent extraction, requires multiple stages of liquid-liquid separation, often hundreds of cycles, to isolate individual REEs. This process is capital-intensive and requires expert technicians. |
| Handling Toxic Byproducts | REE refining generates radioactive and toxic waste that must be carefully managed to comply with strict environmental regulations. |
| Specialized Equipment | High-temperature kilns, chemical reactors, and separation chambers must be custom-built and maintained by highly trained personnel. |
| Scaling Up Production | Developing a commercially viable refinery takes years of research, funding, and infrastructure investment, making immediate production unlikely. |
Myriad other challenges are highly relevant yet not covered by Reuters. Economic realities will set in, given how the competition in China operates. Refining rare earth elements is expensive, and without subsidies or long-term government contracts, private companies may be hesitant to invest. Will the Trump move factor in this reality?
Next even if refining occurs domestically, will the U.S acquire the full repertoire of necessary separation technologies—now the U.S. is mostly dependent on foreign sources, including China, for intermediate processing steps.
As cited above, the U.S. has a limited workforce trained in rare earth refining, making it difficult to scale up operations quickly.
Distortions
The recent Reuters presents the executive order as a decisive step toward solving the U.S.’s reliance on China for critical minerals.
It’s common knowledge that refining is just one part of the supply chain. As mentioned above the U.S. still lacks mining and separation capacity, making self-sufficiency unrealistic in the short to the intermediate term.
Is the Trump administration ready to make the paramount investments necessary? Establishing domestic refining is capital-intensive, requiring significant government incentives and private investment. The Reuters piece completely downplays environmental challenges. Processing rare earths produces radioactive waste and toxic byproducts, which military bases would still need to manage.
And what’s with the global market dynamics?
Even with domestic refining, China controls much of the raw material supply and could manipulate prices to undercut U.S. efforts. Which is an ongoing part of their plan, has been done and will continue to be done.
To conclude, while the initiative signals an intent to reduce reliance on China, it does not address the deeper challenges preventing the U.S. from establishing a fully independent rare earth supply chain.
President Trump appears to be taking a step in the right direction. But to achieve REE resiliency, the U.S. must embark on a long, twisted, steep Journey. The more honest, self-reflective, and comprehensive the understanding, the better the chance for success in the long run.
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