Nitpick: China doesn't have a monopoly on rare earth metals, they just have the least restrictive policies on mining them, and they won't export the raw materials which forces companies to bring their processing operations into china.
The US has plenty of rare earths, they just always come up with thorium, which regulators regard as a nuclear waste that must be disposed of at exorbitant cost to the mine operators.
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Nitpick: China doesn't have a monopoly on rare earth metals, they just have the least restrictive policies on mining them, and they won't export the raw materials which forces companies to bring their processing operations into china.
The US has plenty of rare earths, they just always come up with thorium, which regulators regard as a nuclear waste that must be disposed of at exorbitant cost to the mine operators.