US Government introduce bill to end China’s ‘chokehold’ on America’s rare earth supplies

18 Jan,22 9:30 am
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US Bill on Rare Earth supplies: The US government has recently proposed a law aiming to end China’s alleged “chokehold” on rare-earth metal supplies.

Aim:

  • The law, proposed by Democrat Mark Kelly and Republican Tom Cotton, aims to “protect the US from the threat of rare-earth element supply disruptions.
  • Is also aim is to encourage domestic production of those elements, and reduce its reliance on China.

What is the reason for such a bill?

  • The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a chokehold on global rare-earth element supplies.
  • The rare earth metals are used almost in every latest technology starting from electric batteries to fighter jets.
  • Ending America's dependence on the CCP for extraction and processing of these elements is critical to winning the strategic competition against China and protecting the national security of US.
  • As per the United States Geological Survey (USGS), eighty percent of the United States' rare-earth imports in 2019 were from China.

Key Points of the bill:

  • The law requires the departments of the Interior and Defense to create a "strategic reserve" of rare earth minerals by 2025.
  • The reserve shall be maintained by the Department of Defence and Interiors.
  • The reserve shall be tasked with responding to serve the needs of the tech sector, US army and other essential infrastructural needs.
  • The capacity of the reserve should suffice American rare – earth metal needs for a period of one year.
  • It has urged the Commerce Department to investigate Beijing's "unfair trade practices" and impose higher customs duties accordingly.
  • It also restricts the use of Chinese rare – earth metals in sophisticated defence equipment.
  • The bill aims to provide higher transparency on the origin of the components.

About Rare Earth Metals:

  • They are a set of seventeen metallic elements in the periodic table of Rare Earth Metals.
  • These include the 15 lanthanides on the periodic table in addition to scandium and yttrium that show similar physical and chemical properties to the lanthanides.
  • The 17 Rare Earths are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).

Why are they called Rare Earth Metals?

  • They are called 'rare earth' because earlier it was difficult to extract them from their oxides forms technologically.
  • They occur in many minerals but typically in low concentrations to be refined in an economical manner.

Uses of Rare Earth Metals:

  • As these minerals have unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical properties, they are mainly used in many modern technologies such as mobile phones, flat screen monitors and televisions, electric and hybrid vehicles, including consumer electronics, computers and networks, communications, health care, national defense such as radar, lasers, sonar systems and electronic displays, etc.
  • Even futuristic technologies need these REEs.
  • For instance - High-temperature superconductivity, safe storage and transport of hydrogen for a post-hydrocarbon economy, environmental global warming and energy efficiency issues.

Heavy dependence on China:

  • In 2019, the US imported 80% of its rare earth minerals from China while the European Union gets 98% of its supply from China.
  • India has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of rare earth elements, nearly twice as much as Australia, but it imports most of its rare earth needs in finished form from China.

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