Fragile trade truce buys US time to reduce China reliance, says former US diplomat

I'm glad you brought up rare earths and critical minerals there because we heard from Ambassador Perdue a while ago that he did say that there is a Manhattan project level of attention towards fostering independence in these critical areas such as rare earths for the United States. My question though is how much really has been done to wean the United States off of this because it seems that there's still a lot of dependence and it takes a lot of time and it'll take a lot of development for the US to develop a certain level of independence to wean itself off of supply chain where China the supplies about 70% of all rare earths that are mined and 90% of rare earths that are processed at the moment. Where are we right now all from the US side in terms of if fostering that sort of independence and as because it's so important with regards to this particular facet of the US-China relation? >> JP, I think this is the crux of the matter right here. Again, this whole fragile truce is is predicated on buying time. If I listen carefully to Ambassador Perdue and a number of Trump administration officials, they would justify this leader level diplomacy and this tactical detente on the fact that it gives America space and time to reduce its dependencies on China, particularly on rare earths. I think some progress is being made. There's no doubt about it. But this is the critical question it seems to me. If that's the whole strategic rationale for this tactical detente, then America really needs to step up its game and make progress here. I think more progress is being made on the rare earths issue and reducing dependencies there than in other supply chains, but I still think we have a very long ways to go. >> Yeah, when I think about rare earths here, Don, I think about two facets, right? On one hand, it's about sourcing those rare earths which majority still are in China, but there's also the fact that China has 90% of the processing facilities. Now, on that front, at least in my from my understanding, that's something that the United States might possibly be able to do more in because you can still build those facilities on your own while you're trying to broaden out sourcing or diversifying your sourcing of rare earths to make sure they get processed in the United States. And hey, guess what? It also creates manufacturing jobs potentially for the United States as well. Has a lot been done towards building out that that manufacturing framework and footprint to perhaps a potentially accommodate some of this domestic processing of rare earths in the United States and this also works towards that independence thrust that many officials in Washington D.C. have been alluding to as being a key critical focal point of all of it. Is that happening now stateside? >> Well, JP, there has been some interesting work here including public-private partnership that is really getting at this issue squarely. And look, this is the great irony of the so-called rare earths issue. The minerals themselves aren't that rare. What is rare is any country that has the capability or the willingness to process them. And you know, the US has shuttered most of its manufacturing and processing capabilities regarding rare earths. So, I think that's the issue and it's not just reshoring that capability. It's also building it out amongst trusted allies and partners around the world. Again, to reduce our almost complete dependency on China. What I'm concerned about though, JP, is I think it's going to take a lot longer than a year. I think this is a multi-year project. I think some good preliminary work has been done, but we're nowhere near where we need to be.