Critical minerals power nearly everything in our modern lives. But much of the world has been coming to grips with an ill-advised reliance on China for these materials. Today, we report from Madrid, Spain on how Europe is playing catch up to America’s strategy to dig out of a bad situation.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

“Critical minerals” include about 50 substances designated by the U.S. Geological Survey under the Interior Department. They’re considered essential to the economy and national security, and include lithium, graphite, tungsten, and cobalt.

“Rare earths” are a subgroup of 17 similar elements with unique magnetic and electronic properties vital to high-tech. They include: neodymium, dysprosium, and cerium.

Fighter jets, missiles, and electronics use them.

But as globalization took off in the 80s, the U.S. and Europe starting relying on China to refine critical minerals into usable form. Today China dominates, processing up to 95% of rare earths.

Sharyl: How is it that the U.S. and Europe woke up one day and were super reliant on China? Did China foresee things that we did not plan for?

Santiago Cuesta Lopez: That’s right.

Santiago Cuesta Lopez is a Spanish representative to the European Union on critical raw materials.

Sharyl: What is the danger of Europe, United States, or anybody else having to rely on an adversary for supplies of these critical things?

Lopez: There are different moments that we were realizing and detecting that this was very dangerous and that the different value chains were affected. For instance, the next crisis on rare earths. So we started to see all our lasers or our permanent magnets, we are relying on rare earths. What we are going to do? Without permanent magnets we cannot have electrical vehicles, we cannot have magnetic resonance, cannot have little actuators, we cannot have the hard disc actuators.

Cesar Luaces Frades is a member of the European Commission’s Raw Materials Supply Group.

Cesar Luaces Frades: The problem is that these countries can just open or stop the supply of these raw materials to these economies. And then the economy and the industry of these countries is completely on the hands of these other third countries. So the risk is that is an economic risk. It’s a risk for the industry. It’s a risk for the strategic autonomy and also for the defense.

But both European experts told us America has been far quicker to address the vulnerabilities.

Sharyl: What is the difference you see between where the US is on all of this and where Europe is?

Frades: USA is in a much better position than Europe. Why? For different reasons. European Union can take a policy, let’s say, to decide we should go in that direction, but then it’s to member states to implement the policy. And this is not always that evident while in USA it’s a much more integrated approach. So they are much faster taking the measures. And the economic capacity of USA is the first economy in the world. Is bigger. So they are in a much better position than we are in Europe.

In February, President Trump announced Project Vault to address the critical minerals risk in a way nobody had done before.

President Donald Trump (February 2): For years, American businesses have risked running out of critical minerals during market disruptions. Today we’re launching what will be known as Project Vault to ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage. We don’t want to ever go through what we went through a year ago.

A year before, the world got a taste of China weaponizing its dominance. The country limited exports of rare earths and related materials. It triggered sharp disruptions among European automakers and defense contractors.

Now, Project Vault is just beginning to buy and store critical minerals to protect American supplies.

Lopez: United States has a strategic stockpile. They are doing super well because they have a particular Critical Minerals Institute. They have a United States Geological Survey institute. And they created a politics of critical raw materials. That’s what the United States is doing. So the situation is very different because, Trump, in Europe, not all, but some people say ‘Trump is crazy, President Donald Trump has no strategy.’ No, President Donald Trump has a very perfect strategy. A step-by-step.

Sharyl (on-camera): Spain is among the EU countries pushing move quickly on a Critical Raw Materials Act passed in 2024. It seeks to limit imports from a single country and speed permits for mining and refinery projects at home, which take 10-15 years to build.

Watch the video here.

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IPAK-EDU is grateful to Sharyl Attkisson as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More