USA - As the Pentagon’s top acquisition official Ellen Lord said recently, “We have an amazing amount of dependency on China.” Lord called the findings of a forthcoming report on the defense industrial base “quite alarming,” and noted that China is America’s “sole source for rare earth minerals.”  According to the United States Geological Survey, the United States relies on Chinese imports for at least 20 minerals and has little or no capacity to mine, refine, and process its own minerals from start to finish. As a recent executive order on critical minerals makes clear, this “strategic vulnerability” poses a significant national security risk. Without a dramatic change in minerals policies, the United States will not be able to minimize the economic damage that will come when China decides to leverage its minerals monopolies against us.