Exclusive: U.S. Army will fund rare earths plant for weapons development

The move would mark the first financial investment by the U.S. military into commercial-scale rare earths production since World War Two's Manhattan Project built the first atomic bomb. It comes after President Donald Trump earlier this year ordered the military to update its supply chain for the niche materials, warning that reliance on other nations for the strategic minerals could hamper U.S. defenses. China, which refines most of the world's rare earths, has threatened to stop exporting the specialized minerals to the United States, using its monopoly as a cudgel in the ongoing trade spat between the world's two largest economies.
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