On the eve of President Trump’s first state visit to Beijing, pundits are theorizing what the two leaders, and their delegations, will discuss and negotiate. Key topics like the ongoing Iranian conflict and oil supply, AI development and deployment, Taiwan, and the trade of critical earth minerals are all certain to be discussed.
While all these issues are important and should be discussed by the two powers, only one of these topics can be simply addressed through simple domestic policy changes: the supply of rare earth minerals. These precious metals are needed to build smartphones, electric cars and critical military systems, but they are primarily exported from China to the U.S. There’s no reason to leave such a critical supply chain in the hands of a competitive power when our country has ample domestic resources.
The U.S. is home to large deposits of these key metals and minerals, and up until the 1990s, the country was a major extractor and processor of the world’s rare-earth elements. Despite the availability of these raw materials, the U.S. became dependent on a geopolitical rival due to noble, yet misguided regulatory policies that raise prices and depress investment.
Fortunately, the U.S. is in a position where it can lessen its reliance on Chinese products by reforming these policies. The first step is to reform the federal permitting process.
To say the federal permitting process is broken is an understatement. It takes four to five years to receive the appropriate federal permits to begin almost any construction — and that’s before accounting for the vast and often redundant state permitting processes. Mining projects alone take an average of eight to nine years before receiving federal approval, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. report.
These projects also routinely encounter numerous lawsuits contesting permit approvals or the projects outright, despite many of those claims failing to hold up in court. According to one report, agencies prevailed in 80 percent of appeals cases from 2013 to 2022, highlighting the unnecessary hoops baked into the process.
The consequences of permitting delays extend beyond critical mineral production, impacting key aspects of everyday life. Whether it be the rising costs of energy, both at the gas pump and utility bills, to the development of new housing, federal permitting delays end up costing all Americans directly and indirectly. Fortunately, policymakers are working diligently to address permitting delays, as the Senate negotiates over reform bills like the SPEED Act and the PERMIT Act.
At its core, this is about whether the United States is willing to build again. Critical minerals power everything from smartphones and advanced manufacturing to military technology and energy infrastructure, yet America continues to delay the very projects needed to secure those supply chains domestically. If policymakers want a stronger economy and a more secure future, they should start by fixing a permitting system that too often rewards obstruction over progress.
James Morrone is an Energy Policy Analyst at Americans for Prosperity.
