Dive into the high-stakes global competition for rare earth elements and critical minerals. This week’s analysis reveals China’s strategic dominance, with Baogang Group expanding rare earth innovations and the Communist Party tightening corporate control. The U.S. attempts to counter China’s monopoly through controversial deals with Ukraine, while struggling with infrastructure and processing challenges. Key developments include China’s technological advancements, potential thorium energy breakthroughs, and the emerging geopolitical significance of critical minerals as the new global power currency.
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Dustin Olsen (00:01.026)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. You’ve got me, your host Dustin and our Electris co-host Daniel. How you doing this week, Daniel?
Daniel OConnor (00:10.816)
I’m doing well, Dustin, thanks. It’s Thursday, and I’ll be glad when it’s Friday, and just relax a little bit on the weekend, hopefully.
Dustin Olsen (00:18.602)
Right? Yeah, it’s, it’ll be a good weekend, I hope. To relax, yes. Yeah, so some interesting things happened, right, in the last week. Where do you want to start?
Daniel OConnor (00:23.018)
Yes.
Daniel OConnor (00:35.306)
Well, mean, obviously, look, Dustin, there’s a lot going on with, you know, President Trump and he’s starting to, you know, raise the topic of critical minerals and rare earths. He was calling the raw earth, the raw earth. But at least he’s starting to think about it. Now we have some, we can cover some news about that. Of course, the Ukraine deal sort of fell through, at least for now, although I hear Zelensky wants to get back and speak with
President Trump. But, you I think, you know, we can talk about things going on with China. China controls 90 % of the processing of the rare earth market. So we have a few articles about China that we’re going to go into. And then we’ll cover a couple of the scenarios around the United States and what President Trump’s trying to do.
Dustin Olsen (01:26.67)
Sounds great. So what’s going on in China?
Daniel OConnor (01:30.004)
Well, first, know, just two days ago, we did an article, China’s rare earth innovation, a strategic leap or and is this the growing threat to the West? I mean, one of the things that we’re really monitoring, Dustin, is that there is an awful lot of news coming out of China about their rare earth complex, what we call the rare earth complex in Inner Mongolia and some of these state owned companies. And
They’re coming out with a lot of press releases. I don’t know how much of it is marketing versus actual fact. You have to be on the ground to truly understand. And we have a network and some people over there, but it’s very hard to get hard intel. One of the things they’re talking about over there is Baotao is the Baogang group and subsidiaries like Baotao.
anti-northern technology, they’re talking about intelligent factories. So they’re really trying to digitize these mass complexes over there so that they’re more efficient, automation, robotics, there’s a lot of robotics. So they’re talking about comprehensive government-backed innovation strategies which are transforming their scientific research.
into industrial applications. So, and again, what they’re trying to do and what they’re presenting and positioning is this is bolstering our already monopolistic position. They’re trying to make it so the West cannot catch up. And, you know, the message coming out of China, and again, there’s some propaganda certainly in some of this stuff, but there’s a growing technological gap emerging between China’s systematic
rare earth industrial development and the West’s fragmented approach to advanced materials production.
Daniel OConnor (03:32.394)
They’re not resting. They’re very much like this one article we talked about, a technological breakthrough integrating pioneering, Syrian-based magnet technology from a professor, Li Wei, and his team at China Iron and Steel Research Institute. So it’s a research institute called China Iron and Steel.
And along with anti-technology, they’re, you know, again, talking about these advanced intelligent manufacturing techniques, making the whole process more efficient. Now, obviously, we’re not seeing it. It would be always good to, you know, get more details than what we’re reading in press releases or in reports.
You know, we’re seeing a lot of this. We’re seeing a lot of research and development come out of that industry in China. you know, really this, premises of this development is enhancing China’s ability to, you know, balance both rare earth utilization, resource utilization, ensuring that it can optimize supply chains while also importantly reducing waste.
a capability that they’re pretty convinced over there, Westerners don’t have. And it’s pretty true. mean, we have very little refining and production of rare earths in North America. mean, the mountain pass, you know, MP materials, they’re starting to ramp up some refinement. They’re sort of a treasure trove, a national treasure trove for us, but it’s very early days. So, you know, I think that
Again, a theme that we’re picking up on is a flurry of activity around investment in research and development. Since we founded Rare Earth Exchanges, we’re seeing a whole lot of information about that topic coming out of China.
Dustin Olsen (05:42.454)
Yeah, it’s interesting that they’re, they’re leveraging digital application to, widen the gap and, and advance their lead over any other country, not just us here in the United States, but any country. which is crazy, honestly, like, as you would think it’s, to me, it feels like
Daniel OConnor (05:58.004)
Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (06:11.97)
You know, here in the United States, we’re very tech focused. We have a great tech industry. Like, are we truly that far behind or are we just not capable of catching up with their digital innovations that they’ve got going on?
Daniel OConnor (06:27.028)
Well, remember, it’s on top of this very environmentally not very friendly refining separation, refining, sintering process. So, you know, for a couple of decades, China did this work which nobody else wanted to do. And we didn’t think of it. We just didn’t think about it. There were points in time, however, though, that our government
was concerned, like in 2010 or 11, there was an incident where China used its clout against Japan and that spooked governments and the markets to some extent. But then we forgot about it. you know, yeah, they’re using technology now on top of other, you know, more, I would say bespoke refinement.
separation and refinement processes, some of which have environmental significance, you know, in terms of negative externalities. Even some radioactivity is a byproduct. So there’s a lot of stuff over there that, you know, I hear consultants over here say, we can catch up with China pretty fast. It’s not that big of a deal. No, that’s totally wrong. That’s incorrect. If we wanted to put everything into it today, we’re a decade away.
Dustin Olsen (07:52.696)
Wow, that’s a long time.
Daniel OConnor (07:53.536)
Yeah, at least.
Dustin Olsen (07:57.547)
That’s a long time and I feel like that’s just 10 years closer to China completing their game plan.
Daniel OConnor (08:05.664)
Exactly, their game plan is the currency, that they’re going to have enough money and power, they’ll surpass us from a GDP perspective, and then they’ll be overseeing the currency. That’s their goal. Again, without firing a shot, remember they don’t want any wars or anything like that. you know, they want, it’s an economic war, for sure.
Dustin Olsen (08:27.416)
Yeah, it really, yeah. That’s crazy. Okay, so China’s trying to advance the lead with technology. And here we’ve got President Trump saying, mine, baby, mine.
Daniel OConnor (08:42.698)
Mind baby mind. Okay, so now you don’t maybe Dustin just maybe President Trump’s people have been watching Rare Earth exchanges podcasts or maybe they’ve been reading our News because we have been saying that you know, you shouldn’t be drill baby drill You should mind baby mind. Okay, and and then there’s but then we have also said you got a process baby process
Dustin Olsen (09:11.114)
You
Daniel OConnor (09:11.208)
Refine, baby refine, and then manufacture, baby manufacture. So that part isn’t quite in there. you know, look, I give President Trump a lot of credit. And I don’t agree with everything he’s doing, but, you know, he knows there’s a problem. I mean, frankly, Biden was just asleep at the wheel. Okay. You know, the only critical minerals we were going to get would be, you know, I don’t know.
something for the elderly. We weren’t going to get anything that we could innovate with. So to Trump’s, he is proposing more aggressive strategies to reduce dependency of United States on China for critical minerals and rare earth elements. There’s no doubt about that. They’re putting a plan together. They’ve made some announcements.
Dustin Olsen (09:43.256)
You
Dustin Olsen (10:02.968)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel OConnor (10:06.474)
to accelerate domestic mining on his speech the other night, you he talked about rare earths and minerals. They do wanna accelerate both domestic mining and processing that’s, you know, on their horizon. But as we’ve called out their significant economic and regulatory challenges that are in the way,
You know, they are a national security issue. We agree with that, but we don’t think Dustin that the strategy is comprehensive enough to win. Of course we have a proposal and I think if Trump goes and flies over to China and does a deal per our recommendations, then, you know, I think that’s our influence to be honest with you because we’ve been writing about that quite a bit. So.
What we’re saying Donald Trump should do is fly over to Beijing, okay, and negotiate a deal where United States industry has access to these rare earths and whatever critical minerals for at least five years, if not 10 years at set pricing, and that in exchange will open up markets and things for them. we’ll…
make it a dynamic situation. The other day on an interview, he did say he’s open to having Chinese come invest and he wants us to go invest in China. So I think President Trump is open to this. He is the perfect person to do a deal like this. I he went over to North Korea, for goodness sake, and stepped over the line. What American president does that? So he, you know,
Dustin Olsen (11:51.138)
Yeah.
Daniel OConnor (11:55.712)
He, demilitarized zone, know, so he, think that’s our recommendation to President Trump. In parallel, so he comes back with that deal, he’s a hero, but the Chinese also understand we are going to decouple over time. We’re gonna build our own resilience. We’ve got 10 years, and then we can methodically plan through industrial policy, which is what you’re gonna need.
Do you remember why we need industrial policy versus just letting the sort of standard free market and a few grants here and there and some tax incentives? Why do we need something stronger?
Dustin Olsen (12:26.721)
Yep.
Dustin Olsen (12:39.118)
Uh, we need, we need to be able to cut through all the red tape a little faster. Like there’s, we don’t have anything really. And I think because of that, it generates roadblocks and other agencies and divisions would try to have their say in it when they really probably don’t need to. But if we have policy, well, now we have a path forward.
Daniel OConnor (13:04.746)
Yeah, we have a critical mineral czar, somebody that is on top and responsible for streamlining regulatory agencies, cutting down the red tape, you said, managing a pool of funding that’s going to be used to underwrite a lot of the activity, not only the mining, but the processing, production.
And innovation, and I believe we’ve learned a lot, Dustin, over time, the marketplace is going to out is going to innovate out of this dilemma. So we see, you know, companies that have rare earth free magnets. They don’t even need rare earths. We see recycling companies raising money here in the United States. So over time, I think in maybe 20 years, maybe a little sooner.
maybe little later, but there will be different options than just rare earths, I believe. We’re seeing the seedlings of that now, but we’re 10 to 20 years away from at scale where the China complex is now replaceable, right? I think we’re at least 10 years away if not longer.
Dustin Olsen (14:32.801)
So hypothetically speaking, let’s say in 10 years, 15, 20 years, right? We’re able to have our own independence. We’ve built the infrastructure for mining, processing, producing. Would that flaw China’s plan that they’ve got?
you know, the rest of their plan over the next 20 years, but to just slow it down. What do you think the implications are?
Daniel OConnor (15:09.456)
I think it won’t slow them down. think that they have their own problems, contradictions. have debt problems internally. They have lots of ghost cities and issues with the new generation in terms of labor shortages. There’s problems in China. Make no mistake. They’ve got environmental problems. Other things can happen there. Life is not always just a straight
trajectory, linear trajectory, things can change and something could happen in China that could disrupt their plans.
Dustin Olsen (15:48.846)
Life is never clean. It’s messy. Change.
Daniel OConnor (15:50.812)
It’s never clean and never straightforward most of the time. But I will say that, you know, they control, look, think about this for a minute. They control the core commodities that you need for all high tech goods.
Daniel OConnor (16:11.402)
So that’s why I’m recommending, we’re recommending that Donald Trump, President Trump goes and does a deal with the Chinese. I think that’s okay. Secure these goods for us at a reasonable price. And then in parallel, plan and execute on a…
resilience program that is backed by some level of industrial policy around critical minerals and rare earths. So, but to answer your question, it’s not going to slow China down because they’re monetizing, they’re doing value added production. these electric vehicles, photovoltaic, if the whole world said, we’re not going to go clean energy, that might slow them down. And President Trump tried to disrupt that by saying, we’re not going to do the green
Deal new deal anymore forget that we’re going back to You know drill baby drill and hydrocarbons. However, now we’re talking about my baby mine because we need the critical minerals the rare earth and That’s why you see Discussions with Ukraine even though we’ve talked about There’s nothing really exploitable in Ukraine in the short run Greenland
Canada, the 51st state, et cetera.
Dustin Olsen (17:40.962)
Hmm. Crazy. Alright, what else is on your list?
Daniel OConnor (17:44.778)
Crazy times.
Okay, so another one back to China. You know, we’ve been noticing in the news reports that we translate the Communist Party is tightening the screw up in what we call rare earth country. there’s one major region in Inner Mongolia where the biggest mines are, but there’s also a few other locations. Baogang Group is one of the bigger companies.
China North Rare Earth is one of their subsidiaries that’s state owned or at least partially state owned. But what we’re finding through Baogang Group is they’re demonstrating deep communist party involvement in corporate governance. What they’re doing, Dustin, they’re ensuring that their business strategies align with their national strategic goals. And those national strategic goals are the things that we talk about, that plan, okay?
So they’ve been having meetings, late January they had another set of meetings where they’re emphasizing the strengthening of party control. And that means implementing government policies, fostering collaboration between the state-owned rare earth enterprises and private enterprises. There’s a lot of the smaller companies are still private.
And what they’re doing, Dustin, is they’re, the Communist Party’s very, again, this is a weapon. This is an economic war, make no mistake.
Daniel OConnor (19:25.456)
And their approach is essentially reflective of preparation. They’re preparing. They’re preparing for potential economic challenges because the West is waking up to this problem. Okay. So they’re, they’re focusing on self-reliance, strategic control of critical industries, and having, again, the Communist Party is a major player in all of this.
Dustin Olsen (19:41.407)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Daniel OConnor (19:54.56)
When you think of the Communist Party, you don’t think of business scions, right? You don’t think of business magnets, you think of communist stuff, But no, the Communist Party is very, very involved with this rare earth complex.
Dustin Olsen (20:09.934)
you
Dustin Olsen (20:13.826)
Mm-hmm. It’s crazy. I…
Daniel OConnor (20:16.298)
So any thoughts on that?
Dustin Olsen (20:23.36)
I just wonder like, what would it be like here in the United States if government took the same approach to the businesses that we have? I just don’t think it would go over very well.
Daniel OConnor (20:37.512)
No, that’s the problem. And again, it’s not good, right? mean, communism is not good. It’s not good to have the state controlling businesses. But the problem is, they’re using it as a lever. They’ll lose money to keep prices low, to put anybody in the West out of business that has to live by market rules and not Communist Party rules.
The Chinese are using their treasury to prop up these industries to maintain this monopolistic control. And, you know, our government just spending a few dollars and, you know, encouraging people by saying, you know, rah rah rah, let’s go. That’s not going to cut it.
Dustin Olsen (21:29.034)
No, I’m going to kill it. Yeah, it just, it’s unfortunate. It just seems like a double edged sword. You know, like we, I feel like the typical American approach, right? We don’t need government involvement typically to start a business, run it, whatever. obviously there’s like hoops we have to jump through with the government, but, but to really.
Daniel OConnor (21:29.226)
That’s not gonna cut it.
Dustin Olsen (21:58.262)
turn this around, we need the government and its money to jumpstart it. And I think that’s the advantage that China has given its businesses there, right? The state-owned entities by funding it to keep it going and to achieve certain dreams and ambitions that they have.
Daniel OConnor (22:25.108)
Yes.
Dustin Olsen (22:28.398)
In a way, like, I’m like, man, I was awfully smart of them. You know, good move. You know, good move.
Daniel OConnor (22:34.144)
I mean, look, with the basic, I mean, look, rare earths aren’t that rare. They’re all over the place. It’s hard to collect it at the scale you need. remember, each in some cases, each element requires a different process for separation and refining. they develop these tailored, you know, think about developing websites. You’re a great web developer, but think about, but you use templates. again, you use
you know, off the shelf platforms where you can have a site up and running in no time.
Dustin Olsen (23:13.784)
definitely helps accelerate the process for sure.
Daniel OConnor (23:13.855)
What?
Well, these rare earths mines, they’re not that. Each one is custom and built in with layers of intellectual property. And there’s consultants out there like this guy. We just wrote about this guy. He’s like a global consulting guy. Peter Zaya, what is he called? Bear with me one second. I think it’s important. So he knows about everything. He’s on
YouTube and Peter Zyhan, okay? And you know, we critiqued one of his YouTubes recently because he just trivialized the whole process. it’s not that big of a deal to get this stuff. It’s just messy and environmentally problematic, but now we could do it easily. That was sort of the implication of his presentation and that’s just not right.
And there’s a lot of that, we’re starting, like Dustin, you’re starting to internalize what we’re dealing with. We’re not dealing with a normal situation that you would have in a capitalistic society. We’re not.
Dustin Olsen (24:26.338)
No, yeah, it’s very different.
Daniel OConnor (24:26.994)
Again, Dustin, the market will innovate out of this. There will be disruptions that will allow for alternative methods, but it’s going to take a couple decades, I believe. It’s going to be a couple decades.
Dustin Olsen (24:45.806)
It’s just, it’s not fast enough. There’s just so much that needs to happen and will change in 20 years.
Daniel OConnor (24:50.282)
No.
Daniel OConnor (24:58.302)
Yeah, yeah, but they’ll be running the currency.
Dustin Olsen (25:03.981)
Yeah.
Daniel OConnor (25:05.728)
We will, you know, the lifestyles that we have because, you know, the dollar is the global currency, we cannot trivialize or take for granted. It’s, I mean, and we’re pretty, I mean, I’m biased, but we’re an exceptional experiment. The American experiment is really, truly exceptional. So let’s try to save it for goodness sake.
Dustin Olsen (25:32.204)
Yeah, it’s, I, mean, to that extent, I, I think there’s a lot, like this is all we’ve ever known, right? It’s just, this is the way life is. People take it for granted. And because of that, people have just, and I’ve said this before on the show, but I think people have just kind of fallen asleep. You know, they’re not paying attention, at least to this. mean, they’re paying attention to.
Daniel OConnor (25:35.872)
you
Dustin Olsen (26:01.112)
to TikTok and Instagram and, you know, how to become, you know, influencers and viral and things like that. But, yeah, I just, it’s, it’s very telling. Honestly, I love people I talk to about what’s going on in the last few months, couple of months here in our country. And, they’re, it’s clear they just, they don’t have the foresight or the appreciation for.
you know, what’s going on. You know, the bigger picture, you know, they, today they see that the stock market tanked and they’re upset by it. You know, like their, their livelihood is being threatened, which it is. won’t say that it’s not. But it’s, I think we’ve just put ourselves in a position of, of pain, you know, like we have to rip that bandaid off if we have any hopes of.
Daniel OConnor (26:40.148)
Yeah.
Dustin Olsen (27:00.152)
kind of healing and moving forward. But people don’t view it that way. They don’t view that there was anything wrong. So.
Daniel OConnor (27:09.28)
Well, there’s a lot wrong and that’s why, know, again, I don’t agree with everything that President Trump is doing. I have to say there’s certain things I just don’t think is the right method. you know, the spirit of what he’s trying to do, I completely agree with. You know, we need a reset. We need to downsize and we need to, you know, right size and we need to get hungry and lean and mean again.
And as entrepreneurs, we do that. It’s just naturally, right? But most Americans aren’t entrepreneurs. They do their thing. But the problem is because the world is becoming multipolar, because different countries, China is on our heat, they’re very close to us. Within probably five, seven years, they’re going to pass us from a GDP standpoint.
Dustin Olsen (27:41.326)
Yeah.
Daniel OConnor (28:05.534)
That’s a major implication. And India is not far behind. India is fifth. They’ve got over a billion and a half people too. I think they even have more people than China now. India is soon going to surpass Germany and Japan in the next probably 10, 5, 10 years. So you’re in a different world now.
Dustin Olsen (28:28.172)
Yeah. Which is crazy. Like, because, right, we’ve grown up in a certain paradigm where, you know, America’s on top. And it’s, I mean, which it’s awesome to see these other countries, you know, find, find their footing and, and, and, you know, work their way up to be a worthy competitor. which I, is amazing.
Daniel OConnor (28:39.05)
That’s right. That’s right.
Daniel OConnor (28:45.48)
Of course, 100%.
Dustin Olsen (28:57.666)
but it also forces change.
Daniel OConnor (29:01.714)
It has changed. That’s why Trump got elected. That’s why he’s trying to downsize the government. None of this is in a vacuum. Okay. And the rare earth is just one example. It’s a very glaring example of how our political class and our corporate chieftains sold us down the river. mean, they basically had no foresight. They didn’t care. They were greedy. They were taking the profits. A lot of people got rich.
But now we’re going to have to pay the piper. A couple other things quickly. Thorium, it’s an element involved with reactors. And according to recent news, a declassified survey, we found multiple news sources in China. The Bayon-Obo mine has massive thorium reserves. So they say it’s a geological survey that revealed the vast thorium reserves.
That they claim and again, this could be propaganda. Okay could power the nation the Chinese nation for 60,000 years Positioning the country as a potential leader in next-generation nuclear energy now we need to watch that I mean, this is not rare earth. It’s technically not a rare earth It’s it’s like an exotic element, but it’s not a rare earth element I believe so. I believe it’s not
The world’s first thorium molten salt reactor is under construction out in the Gobi Desert. They believe that this will lead to a more efficient and cleaner alternative than traditional uranium-based nuclear power. So it’s an alternative to uranium-based nuclear power generation. And they’re claiming that…
despite the significant potential, the challenges still remain in economically extracting the thorium and managing the environmental impact. So they are very concerned about their environment over there. you know, we should watch this because again, all this comes back to energy, you know, these rare earths, critical minerals, or even elements in this case.
Daniel OConnor (31:20.958)
some of them become part of the green energy or nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is basically clean energy. You just have to deal with the byproduct. I think it’s downplayed. think nuclear energy has a lot of potential. So that’s something we’re watching out for. be looking more into that. again, on the United States and
our attempt to counter China’s rare earth monopoly. Again, we have a challenging pathway, Dustin. President Trump’s effort to try to position us to get access to mineral resources. I think it’s important that we end with this. And then I want to talk about the website and projects. I think it’s important, Dustin.
Let’s just say President Trump figures out a deal with Greenland.
and with Ukraine and you know things warm up again with Canada and we start getting product over there. Okay so let’s say all that happens. I ask you the question based on what we’ve learned and again caveat we’re still new at this we’re not experts we’re learning as we go okay. Why is that not going to solve our problem?
Dustin Olsen (32:45.262)
Mm.
Daniel OConnor (32:50.816)
We’ve got Greenland. On the news, it would solve our problem. Everybody says, yeah, we’re going to get the rare earths in Greenland and we’re going to be set. We won’t need the Chinese anymore.
Dustin Olsen (33:02.798)
So yeah, what’s your question? Why will that not solve our problem?
Daniel OConnor (33:06.398)
Why would that not matter? At least in the next decade.
Dustin Olsen (33:10.19)
Well, it’s as we’ve said before, right? Rare earths aren’t rare. They’re everywhere, right? Getting them is less of an issue as it is processing them. Right. And, and we’ve, we’ve said that throughout the show, you know, of even if we could mine it, it’s got to go to China. Even
A portion of what we mine out of California at MP materials is contractually obligated to go to China for processing. Right. So we could get it out of the ground. Sure. But are we just going to sit on it until we can get processing online? Maybe let’s just buy, let’s just buy Greenland and just let it sit there.
Daniel OConnor (33:47.274)
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.
Daniel OConnor (34:02.782)
Yeah, exactly. that’s, you’re right. And so there’s the processing, there’s the separation from the host rock or whatever the material is. There’s the refining and then there’s a production into things like magnets. They control that. I mean, we have a few companies doing some interesting things. MP Materials, very important company, very important. If MP Materials is watching…
You know, we’re your biggest cheerleaders here, okay? But it’s not enough. They need help. They need a lot of help. If they have to operate like a standard company in a capitalistic market, they need help, because the Chinese will bury you, okay? Because they don’t operate by those rules. And they’ve got the cash reserves to do this for 100 years, probably.
So now real quickly, I want to just get into before we call it a day, know, Dustin, we’ve got the projects up. What we’re doing now is we’re going through all of the mines and we’re actually doing some research online to see if they are actually producing rare earths or not. Some of them are not that we have that. That’s why we put that qualifier up there. I don’t know if you can show it for
Dustin Olsen (35:29.998)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel OConnor (35:31.712)
for the viewers, but we’re gonna make this a rich, compelling centralized store of information for rare earth and ultimately critical minerals as well. So don’t worry about if you can’t show it, but go to rareearthexchanges.com, you’ll see projects, and again, that’s a work in progress, but we’re ultimately gonna call all those facilities all over the world.
And we’re going to really take it to the next level of information. Then of course, we’ve got, there it is, our global projects database. These are all the minds worldwide. So I’m excited about this, Dustin. You got it going, really grateful. And I think, you know, we’ll have, you know, what are they really producing, who are key contacts, a very rich resource.
for those that are interested in this topic. And of course, we’re also looking at a marketplace. I won’t go into too many details, but we have ambitious plans. We’re software developers. We plan on disrupting this industry.
Dustin Olsen (36:32.396)
Yeah, totally.
Dustin Olsen (36:46.05)
Yeah, disrupt, baby disrupt.
Yep. we, we want to get right in the thrills of it with, the Trump administration and, and yeah, we, we, we support the cause of, you know, reducing our reliance on not just China, but other countries that we might be heavily reliant on. I like synergy. like working together, but when it feels like, you know, we’re held over a barrel, it’s not a great position to be in. So.
Daniel OConnor (37:04.052)
Yes.
Dustin Olsen (37:21.838)
So yeah, I think that’s our show, Daniel, right?
Daniel OConnor (37:28.672)
I’ll just leave with this recommendation to President Trump because I know some of his people have to be watching our show. It’s that important. President Trump planned to get on a plane and go to Beijing and do a really creative deal where you negotiate access to all the rare earths that we need at a fair price point for the next five, if not 10 years.
Then in parallel, when you get back, up a minerals czar and start streamlining and start planning for, you know, within this decade from 2025 to 2035, we’ll have resilience. So we’ll support the Chinese and we’ll work with them and they’ll allow us, we’ll allow them to get market love over here to make money.
And we’ll get what we need. I don’t think it has to be hostile. I think there’s a creative business solution. And I do think Donald Trump of all the presidents that we’ve had is the most ideal candidate to pull something like that off.
Dustin Olsen (38:40.436)
I And if he’s got the last two months for busy, I think the next four years are going to be a wild ride. He’s got a lot of work to do.
Daniel OConnor (38:50.663)
Yeah, I would agree.
I agree.
Dustin Olsen (38:55.116)
All right, well, Daniel, let’s sign off. We’ll be back next week covering more of the latest news, what’s set out to us. And we’d love to hear from you guys. So come to the website. We’ve got comments turned on. You can leave us some feedback about the news that we’re publishing on. We’re on LinkedIn. We’ve got a newsletter. So lots of places to come join the conversation and we’d love your feedback. So with that, we’ll see you guys later.
Daniel OConnor (39:22.122)
Thank you.