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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s blunt declaration in Davos that the United States can break its dependence on foreign rare earth minerals within a year or two should be read as a wake-up call, not a victory lap. For years our nation outsourced the backbone of modern industry and national defense to an adversary that treats strategic materials as leverage, and now Washington is finally admitting the problem out loud. Americans deserve the truth: rebuilding supply chains is possible, but it will take backbone, money, and policy changes—not warm words on a ski slope.
Yes, there are threads of progress to point to, including high-level negotiations with Beijing that have loosened recent export chokeholds and short-term supply hiccups, but those moves do not erase decades of reckless dependency. The White House and Treasury have reportedly secured frameworks to resume some Chinese exports and to stabilize flows while the U.S. scales up domestic capacity. Make no mistake: temporary deals buy time, but they do not deliver sovereign supply chains.
Experts outside the podium are right to warn that a true, end-to-end American rare-earth industry — from mine to magnet to finished product — will take years to build, not months. Analysts say the bottleneck is not just digging ore out of the ground but refining and manufacturing complex magnets at scale, and that overcoming environmental, permitting, and capital hurdles could stretch into a decade. Conservatives who love this country should view that sober timeline as a challenge, not an excuse to surrender to dependence on hostile states.
That said, the administration’s recent actions—targeted investments, defense partnerships, and incentives aimed at reshoring critical-mineral capacity—deserve support from patriots who want results, not partisan hand-wringing. The government is finally putting real money and pressure behind projects that the free market alone wouldn’t prioritize because China underpriced strategic risk for decades. If Washington follows through with sustained funding and streamlined permitting, American workers and manufacturers can reclaim these industries and secure supply lines for jets, missiles, and clean-energy infrastructure.
We should also thank Mr. Bessent for calling out corporate rot where he sees it: defense contractors and big manufacturers that sit on profits while failing to ramp production have left the country exposed. Turning off the spigot of stock buybacks and forcing firms to build capacity instead of buying back shares is exactly the kind of accountability a national-security crisis demands. If executives prefer payouts to patriotism, they should not be surprised when Washington changes the rules to prioritize production over Wall Street theatrics.
Now is not the time for half-measures or nostalgic faith in cheap foreign supply. Congress must move to cut red tape, accelerate mine-to-magnet projects, and partner with reliable allies to create diversified supply chains that cannot be weaponized by Beijing. The private sector must answer the call with long-term investment, not short-term earnings games, and Americans must demand infrastructure and industrial policy that reflect the reality of great power competition.
Patriotic conservatives should celebrate the pivot away from complacency while holding leaders accountable for results. Bessent’s timeline may be ambitious, and skepticism is healthy, but resignation is not an option. If we mobilize industry, reform permitting, and keep the pressure on both government and corporate America, we can and must restore American sovereignty over the materials that power our prosperity and keep our families safe.
