It is always best not to depend on third countries in the essentials. This thing about rare earths is basically not so correct, since they are not really rare, they are found in practically all countries, only the extraction is enormously polluting, but on the other hand there are in each country old exploitations and mining in an environment that has already been destroyed. Urban mining may also should be more used than currently, with the huge amount of electronic waste available everywhere and are a big source for not only "rare earth", but also a lot of other raw material. As always, political, economic and corporation interests prevail the common sense.