America’s $10 Trillion War Machine Still Runs on Chinese Rare Earths

The U.S. government spends roughly $900 billion on defense each year. The private aerospace and defense sector generates close to $1 trillion in annual revenue. Over the next five years, nearly $10 trillion will flow through production lines that build fighter jets, missile defense systems, naval vessels, radar networks, satellites, and drones. All of it depends on one industrial step North America largely abandoned decades ago: the conversion of rare-earth oxide into magnet-grade metal. For decades, China has dominated rare earths — not…