U.S. Senator Maro Rubio (R-Fla.) recently introduced a bill that aims to break off the country’s reliance on importing rare earth minerals from China.
Rare-earth elements, such as cobalt and lithium, are needed to produce critical components within many key technologies such as electric vehicles, smartphones, wind turbines, satellites, missiles, and semiconductor chips. This is also why amid trade war tensions, Beijing has threatened to cut off rare earth exports to the United States.
