An executive order today orders the Secretary of Commerce to do an inventory of the United States supply chain for critical and rare earth minerals. The Secretary has 6 months to do so and assess risks. "Associated risks arise from a variety of factors. First, global supply chains are prone to disruption from geopolitical tensions, wars, natural disasters, pandemics, and trade conflicts."
The worry about trade conflicts is almost certainly a worry about trade conflicts with China, which provides 90% of all exports of these minerals and products derived from these minerals, such as powerful magnets. Rare earth minerals are critical to everything from cell phones to missiles and are crucial to the world we live in.
For China's part, they have terminated our supply, under the guise of government red tape. But the termination of these exports is real even if it appears to be paperwork. We currently have whatever the various corporations have in store here in the States, and little more trickling in.
This explains Trump's desperation to get a deal with Ukraine, to mine their critical minerals. It's why after all the bluster, Trump didn't withdraw support for Ukraine's military and continues to seek a mineral deal.
I believe peoplee in the president's cabinet have realized what this trade war has done, and have predicted this and worse. They're not idiots. For this reason, the president is looking for literally any other source of critical minerals, and is willing to take any action to get them. I believe this executive order is really the beginning of the foundation of paperwork and actions that lead up to taking minerals by force.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/ensuring-national-security-and-economic-resilience-through-section-232-actions-on-processed-critical-minerals-and-derivative-products-a08a/
https://fortune.com/2025/04/14/china-rare-earth-exports-halt-trump-trade-war-tariff-retaliation/
https://apnews.com/article/democrats-trump-actblue-indivisible-legal-threat-fbi-42f502bcb5888b12628629710c6eb21b
https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-applauds-president-trumps-plan-restore
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