There you have it! China controls 61% of global rare earth mining and 92% of all processing — and…
May 13, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 comments
China Threat Defense Workforce
There you have it! China controls 61% of global rare earth mining and 92% of all processing — and just banned exports to any foreign military.
The F-35 needs 900 pounds of rare earths. A Virginia-class submarine? 9,200 pounds. An Arleigh Burke destroyer — 5,200 pounds.
Now read the next sentence carefully.
The United States has ZERO heavy rare earth separation capacity. None. Not a single facility operational today.
We handed Beijing the kill switch on our own weapons systems — and it took us decades of pure negligence to get here. China didn't steal this advantage. We gave it to them. Administrations on both sides watched it happen and did nothing.
During the Cold War, our National Defense Stockpile held $42 billion in critical reserves. Today? Under $1 billion. We liquidated our own insurance policy.
And it gets worse. China's building weapons 5 to 6 times faster than we are. They're operating with a wartime mindset while Washington still runs on peacetime procurement schedules and PowerPoint briefings.
The DoW says they'll have a mine-to-magnet supply chain by 2027. They've invested $439 million since 2020. That sounds impressive until you realize the GAO says closing the gap actually costs $18.5 billion. So we're at 2% of where we need to be.
How is that acceptable?
I walked those halls. I watched procurement programs burn through billions while critical dependencies on China went completely unaddressed. Rare earths weren't classified or sexy — so nobody cared. Now Beijing flips one switch and the F-35 production line has a problem.
This is Chapter 4 of my book REPLACEMENT — how China built a 30-year strategy while America built excuses. Out end of July.
I built UnbiasedHeadlines.com to cover stories like this — 50+ sources, zero spin. Full breakdown on there now: https://lnkd.in/eeekVimp
Thoughts?
The F-35 needs 900 pounds of rare earths. A Virginia-class submarine? 9,200 pounds. An Arleigh Burke destroyer — 5,200 pounds.
Now read the next sentence carefully.
The United States has ZERO heavy rare earth separation capacity. None. Not a single facility operational today.
We handed Beijing the kill switch on our own weapons systems — and it took us decades of pure negligence to get here. China didn't steal this advantage. We gave it to them. Administrations on both sides watched it happen and did nothing.
During the Cold War, our National Defense Stockpile held $42 billion in critical reserves. Today? Under $1 billion. We liquidated our own insurance policy.
And it gets worse. China's building weapons 5 to 6 times faster than we are. They're operating with a wartime mindset while Washington still runs on peacetime procurement schedules and PowerPoint briefings.
The DoW says they'll have a mine-to-magnet supply chain by 2027. They've invested $439 million since 2020. That sounds impressive until you realize the GAO says closing the gap actually costs $18.5 billion. So we're at 2% of where we need to be.
How is that acceptable?
I walked those halls. I watched procurement programs burn through billions while critical dependencies on China went completely unaddressed. Rare earths weren't classified or sexy — so nobody cared. Now Beijing flips one switch and the F-35 production line has a problem.
This is Chapter 4 of my book REPLACEMENT — how China built a 30-year strategy while America built excuses. Out end of July.
I built UnbiasedHeadlines.com to cover stories like this — 50+ sources, zero spin. Full breakdown on there now: https://lnkd.in/eeekVimp
Thoughts?