“Is the US Shifting Its Dependency?” Don’t miss these thoughts by author and IP attorney Timothy Trainer

February 28, 2025 — The headlines just this week about the US increasing its dependency on international energy have included the following:

Here’s my question: While the subject of ”rare earth minerals” might be of interest to a limited audience compared to the overall readership of current events, after just a few minutes searching under the topic of rare earth minerals, a long list of articles are found. Even non-science readers will quickly grasp the importance of these minerals after reading just a few articles that describe what they are and the products that incorporate them.

Do you use a cell phone? Do you have a flat-screen television monitor? Are you driving an electric or hybrid automobile? Do you need a computer hard drive? What about the latest greatest U.S. fighter jet and other advanced weapons systems? Our modern daily lifestyle and technology-based economy and military demands minerals that aren’t easy to access. The minerals have to be found, mined, extracted and refined to be usable.

According to the articles listed above and many others, the U.S., Europe and Japan are dependent upon other countries to provide the minerals necessary to make many of today’s modern products. China is the world’s greatest source of processed minerals. At present, the U.S. and its companies depend on China for a significant amount of what China processes and exports.

Suddenly, we are seeing articles about the possibility of sourcing our needs from Russia as well as China. Based on the above listed articles, Russia offers to provide these minerals from Russian-occupied Ukrainian land while the Trump Administration attempts to negotiate an agreement to access mineral deposits under Ukraine’s control.

The crux of the problem: These changes will remain with us for years as the U.S. will continue to be dependent upon others as the source of these minerals for modern day living and security. We should ask whether decreasing dependence on China only to be beholden to Russia is any better. China, Russia and any other country that provides these minerals will be able to influence corporate and government decisions simply by threats of cutting off access to rare earth minerals.

Unfortunately, as dependence on China and China’s refinement and control of rare earth minerals has increased, it has occasionally used its superior position to limit exports to certain countries as retaliation when its customers have acted against its interests. There is no reason to believe Russia wouldn’t do the same.

Given the necessity of rare earth minerals in today’s technology-based world of products and military systems, the challenge for the U.S. is to make a commitment to improving its technological capabilities to mine these minerals without having devastating impacts on the environment as well as extracting the minerals from what is mined in order to refine them for use.

The reality: There is no easy or quick solution for the U.S. in resolving its issue of dependency on other countries. The question is whether shifting U.S. dependency from China to Russia does anything to lessen our vulnerability to the whims of others who control the export flow of these minerals for use by U.S. industries.

Any decision to mine U.S. reserves of rare earth minerals and build the necessary infrastructure to extract and refine them is an expensive and long-term endeavor. The U.S. will not be able to eliminate its dependence on others.

The challenge is finding alternative foreign sources who are less likely to use them as an economic weapon that can have debilitating effects on our industries and the military.

About the Author: Attorney Timothy Trainer worked in multiple federal government agencies and in the private sector. His non-traditional legal career included significant time focused on international trade issues. His work required extensive travel around the world, including dozens of trips to the Asia-Pacific region. His experiences led him to co-author a legal treatise for fifteen years, penning novels including “The China Connection,” and “Pendulum Over the Pacific,” and authored a non-fiction book “The Fortunate Son: Top, Through the Eyes of Others,” about men who served in Vietnam with his father. Learn more at TimothyTrainer.com.