The federal government should act as a strategic buyer of record to absorb price shocks and create a strategic reserve of rare earths to counter Chinese economic mercantilism.

“So I think this structure where we now have these public private partnerships frankly is the only practical antidote to dealing with this issue.”

The US should prioritize deregulation and economic incentives over price floors to foster a more liquid, competitive rare earth industry.

“So I would argue we should be focusing not so much on setting price floors to create an incentive for folks in the US to get involved in the industry, but rather to deregulate and to provide perhaps tax incentives and other economic incentives.”

Establishing price floors for rare earths is necessary to provide enough certainty for US investors to reshore the industry and break China's monopolistic leverage.

“And I just don't see another way to be able to create the incentives for investors because they know that if they invest a lot of money in rare earth processing that all China has to do is slash the prices and drive them out of business.”