As China already controls more than 85 percent of the global market for refining rare earth minerals, the United States’ defense industry could run into trouble if the imports of these elements are halted, according to Luisa Moreno, president of Defense Metals, a Vancouver-based mineral exploration company.
Rare earth is used in various industries, according to Moreno, including in defense applications like missiles, in agriculture to make fertilizers, and in medicine.
“If China was to stop exporting these critical elements to the United States, there will definitely be a crisis where we will not have them for some of the military applications,” Moreno recently told Epoch TV’s “China Insider” program….