Because we essentially shut down a vital part of US manufacturing and shipped it to China – from Bloomberg:
A generation after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made mastering neodymium and 16 other elements known as rare earths a priority, China dominates the market, with far-reaching effects ranging from global trade friction to U.S. job losses and threats to national security.
The U.S. handed its main economic rival power to dictate access to these building blocks of modern weapons by ceding control of prices and supply…
The materials are used in making some of our most advanced weapons systems – we used to make the materials, now we don’t. We hope to ramp up some production by 2012, but the article says it could be 15 years before we’re in decent shape. China has reduced its exports of these materials and is using its leverage to obtain concessions from us and everyone else who uses these “rare earth” metals. This is criminal negligence in our part.
We can no longer afford to have others manufacture our goods for us. For the prosperity and safety of our people, we must engage in a crash course of re-industrialization…and if this takes a trade war with China to do it, then that is just what we’ll have to do. This is serious business and we have to treat it as the grave threat to national security that it is.
The environmentalists will have to shut up. The unions will have to stop trying to suck the life out of the American economy. The regulators need to be bound and gagged. The tax man has to be shown the door. We have to get busy working – and restore America to pre-eminence in manufacturing.
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