One state’s natural resources can finally put an end to America’s reliance on China
Recent news that China plans to ban the sale of critical minerals to the US has sent a massive chill down the spines of American manufacturers and investors, threatening to damage our economy to the tune of billions of dollars. This presents a choice for America. Will we take control of our own economic future and embrace the wealth of resources literally beneath our feet, or will we roll over and let hostile adversaries like China dictate the economic and national security trajectory of the 21st Century?
As explained in recent reports, China has announced an export ban on gallium, germanium and antimony. These minerals are essential to the manufacture of electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, computers, smartphones and defense technology like radar systems, to offer just a few examples. In other words, minerals like these are key to competing in the economy of the future; China has them, they won’t export them anymore and that leaves our economy at a disadvantage – unless we step up and seize the moment.
Right now, we’re living in the kind of transformative economic era not seen since the last industrial revolution. Over the past three decades, the world economy has rapidly digitized, which now means that minerals like those being held hostage by China are more critical to both our prosperity and our national security. And that is exactly why China would not want the rest of the world to have them.
The fact of the matter is that he who pays the piper gets to call the tune. That’s as true in politics and daily life as it is in the global economy. When the United States and our allies are dependent on bad actors and adversaries for the things we need to drive our economy, we are naturally going to be less prosperous, less secure and less free. As Governor of the state of Alaska, I have a solution for America to deal with this problem.
The Chinese Communist Party is not our ally and it is time that we started acting like it. Our current status as trading partners has been an uneasy and unsustainable relationship of convenience for decades now and we can now fully see the effects of allowing that relationship to make us dependent on them for our economic well-being and the instruments of our daily lives.
Fortunately, the United States is more than equipped to meet this moment thanks to our northernmost state. Alaska is not only rich in energy, but also endowed with an enormous abundance of mineral resources across the state. All we need to do is simply take advantage of what we already have available. Alaska is home to 49 of 50 critical minerals like the ones China does not want us to have.
Unfortunately, our access to them as a country has been drastically hindered by bad policy and misguided politics. For nearly four years, the Biden-Harris administration’s "look, but don’t touch" approach to Alaska has been depriving the hard-working Americans I serve of employment and the American people as a whole of the materials we need to succeed economically.
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Some worry that accessing these mineral resources will come at the cost of Alaska’s wildlife and natural beauty, but I find these arguments absurd. Nobody cares more about preserving America’s final frontier than the men and women who live, hunt and fish here. We can do both successfully, and we have for centuries.
Thomas Jefferson once famously wrote that dependence "begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." Given the fact that a simple export ban from the other side of the Pacific Ocean now threatens to harm our economy so severely, it is hard to argue with Mr. Jefferson. To compete in the 21st century, America needs critical minerals for consumer products and defense systems, and we need energy to power both. Our need for those is not going to diminish; if we want our children to inherit the prosperity and independence we value, then it’s time to stop looking abroad for the building blocks of a strong America and start looking north to Alaska.