Highlights

• China controls over 70% of global battery production and has significant investments in lithium extraction in Afghanistan.
• Sodium-ion batteries are promising but do not solve the broader challenge of rare earth element processing and manufacturing dominance.
• The U.S. needs a comprehensive strategy addressing mining, processing, and manufacturing of strategic technological components to break China's chokehold.

In a recent article titled “Here’s How Donald Trump Can Break China’s Battery Monopoly (opens in a new tab)” (Slingshot News, Dec. 21, 2024), author Troy Smith draws attention to America’s vulnerability in lithium-ion battery supply chains and China’s aggressive moves to dominate global battery production through its investments in Afghanistan. While Smith raises some important red flags, the piece, packed with patriotic fervor and techno-optimism, fails to capture the full extent of China’s near-monopoly over rare earth elements (REEs), which power much more than just batteries.

Smith is right to raise alarms: China controls over 70% of global battery production, and lithium extraction in Afghanistan is now largely under Beijing’s shadow. His central prescription—that America can shatter China’s dominance by pivoting to sodium-ion battery technology based on common salt (soda ash)—is intriguing, even hopeful. But it’s also incomplete and, in some ways, naïve.

The article ignores the fact that lithium is only one piece of the much larger rare earth puzzle. While lithium is not technically a rare earth, the rare earth elements—like neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium—are essential for the permanent magnets found in everything from fighter jet motors and wind turbines to EV drivetrains and advanced missile guidance systems. Sodium-ion batteries, while promising, do not replace the need for these strategic elements.

Worse, Smith downplays the structural chokehold China holds over the entire rare earth value chain. It’s not just the mines in Inner Mongolia or the investments in Afghanistan. It’s the chemical separation facilities, refining infrastructure, metallization, and magnet production—all of which are vertically integrated and overwhelmingly concentrated within China. A breakthrough in salt-based batteries won't change that.

The article also proposes the familiar “drill baby drill” solution—unleashing domestic lithium mining in Nevada, Arkansas, and California—but fails to address America’s regulatory inertia, permitting gridlock, and the complete absence of large-scale rare earth processing capacity. Removing “stringent EPA regulations,” as Smith suggests, without a parallel investment in environmentally sound processing and local community engagement, is a recipe for backlash, not resilience.

The opinion piece rightly criticizes America’s retreat from Afghanistan as a geopolitical gift to Beijing and highlights the DOE’s $50 million investment into alternative battery R&D.. Still, without addressing rare earth refining bottlenecks, defense procurement reform, and allied supply chain cooperation, the piece reads more like an op-ed for electoral cycles than a blueprint for industrial strategy.

Bottom Line

Sodium-ion may be a piece of the puzzle, but REE dominance is the bigger, darker board. America must move beyond slogans and invest in a comprehensive rare earth strategy—mining, processing, and manufacturing—before the lights go out on more than just our smartphones.

Sources: Troy Smith, Slingshot.News, “Here’s How Donald Trump Can Break China’s Battery Monopoly” (Dec. 21, 2024); BloombergNEF; USGS; DOE reports.