You can’t build a military without minerals.
You can’t win a tech war without magnets.
And you can’t bluff your way through a crisis when your opponent controls the raw materials and the map.
Welcome to the rare earth trap.
And as of April 4, the trap has been sprung.
In response to the latest round of Trump’s tariff escalations, China has slammed the door shut on seven key rare earth elements and the magnets made from them—samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. These aren’t niche items. These are critical inputs for electric vehicles, drones, chips, robots, and advanced weapons systems.
Want to build a next-gen drone swarm or a hypersonic missile defense system?
Better ask Beijing for permission first.
Ports across China have stopped shipments cold. A few magnets with trace amounts of rare earths are being allowed—but not if they’re headed to the U.S. That’s not just a trade spat. That’s a strategic blockade.
And this didn’t come out of nowhere. China has been tightening its grip on these supply chains for years while the U.S. played checkers on a chessboard it didn’t even understand.
Now the White House is scrambling.
In response, Trump’s team is drafted an executive order to start stockpiling deep-sea metals—like we’re preparing for nuclear winter. Minerals scraped from the ocean floor would be “stored in large quantities on U.S. soil” for future emergencies. That’s right: we’re preparing for war by hoarding rocks.
And while we hoard, China refines. China ships. China builds.
Because it turns out you can’t tariff your way out of a supply chain you don’t control.
We’ve got rare earth deposits right here in the U.S.—from California to Texas to Wyoming. But we don’t have the refineries. We don’t have the smelting plants. We don’t have the environmental waivers or the political backbone to process them.
That part? Still done in China.
The Pentagon says there are 900 pounds of rare earths packed into every F-35 fighter plane use by the Navy, Marines and Air Force– so our most advanced fighter can’t even get off the ground without minerals from China.
So every time someone screams “decouple from China,” ask them what their plan is to refine rare earths—because right now, we’ve got slogans instead of smelters.
This isn’t just about batteries. It’s about battlegrounds. James Litinsky, CEO of American miner MP Materials, put it plainly:
“Drones and robotics are widely considered the future of warfare, and based on everything we are seeing, the critical inputs for our future supply chain are shut down.”
Let that sink in:
The parts needed for tomorrow’s wars are being cut off today.
And here’s the kicker: despite knowing this, the U.S. is still slapping 145% tariffs on the very rare earths it depends on. That’s like taxing your last lifeboat because it was made overseas—while the ship is still sinking.
So once again, we come back to the hard truth:
We let this happen.
We offshored the mining. We killed the refining. We ignored the warnings.
And now we’re praying that stockpiles and slogans will hold the line.
They won’t.
Because you don’t fight a war with “patriotic supply chains.”
You fight it with parts. With tech. With strategy.
And right now, China owns the blueprint.
This isn’t just a supply chain issue. It’s a national security emergency. And if we don’t wake up fast, we’ll find ourselves armed with nothing more than excuses—while our rivals move forward with drones, chips, and missiles stamped “Made in China.”
And just when you think this supply chain fiasco couldn’t get any dumber, the U.S. is also hitting Canadian steel and aluminum—the very materials we rely on for shipbuilding and aircraft production. At a time when we’re talking about restoring America’s maritime dominance and modernizing the Air Force, we’re slapping tariffs on our closest ally and driving up our own costs.
You want to build a fleet? You’ll pay more for the hull.
You want a squadron of new aircraft? Get ready to pay more for the wings.
You can’t build the arsenal of democracy if you’re taxing the metal before it hits the factory floor. You can read more of my story here at The Military Reporter.