Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

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> > I generally like his shows of strength

The US has the nuclear trident, the Ohio ICBMs nuclear submarines, the Gerald Ford Class Carriers, the thousands of Minutemen delivering warheads in 20 minutes or less, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Air Force in the World...

All of that, not to mention the soft power precisely in order to avoid having to pull this sort of BS in the oval office

The US strenght is the system , not the dude in the expensive house on Penn Avenue with the nice plane. He very rarely adds something but can absolutely throw lots of the systemic effort down the sink

This concept is so disingenuous. The earth is is big enough for Russian, China, and the US to coexist in peace. My country's spending should be spent in my country. Not liberating a land that has nothing to do with us.

On the minerals front, the US doesn't need anything from Ukraine. Most of the minerals mentioned, except titanium, are un-mined deposits. Or things the US has plenty of already, such as oil, natural gas, coal, and iron.

Here's a rundown:

- Rare earths:

I've mentioned the MP Minerals, Mountain Pass, CA mine before. The US doesn't have enough rare earth refining capability, and China won't export the technology. So US ore goes to China for processing. Or did, until DoD paid for a separation plant at Mountain Pass. That problem is close to being solved. That new separation plant is running. A plant for the final step, making magnet-ready metal, has been built in Texas, again by MP Minerals, and it's about ready to open.

What's happened with rare earths is not that they're rare. It's that China undercut US prices so much that the Mountain Pass mine went bankrupt. Twice. In 2015, there was a rare earths glut. Look at WSJ rare earths articles back to 2011.

There are large un-mined rare earth deposits in Colorado and Wyoming, with startups talking about mining them. Whether this makes economic sense is unclear. If all those start up, the price will crash again and they all go bust.

Three years ago, the US rare earths situation looked bad. Not today.

- Uranium

The US has plenty of uranium resources. Canada and the US are historically the biggest producers.

- Titanium

Titanium ore has supposedly been discovered in Tennessee. See https://iperionx.com/ Are those guys for real? Not clear.

- Lithium

The US produces about 75% of the lithium it uses. New deposits have been found in Arkansas:

https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/unlocking-ar...

And in Nevada:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCWeZiVsotc

- Graphite

China is the leading producer, but Canada and Norway are ramping up. There hasn't been US production of natural graphite since the 1950s. US production of synthetic graphite satisfies most US demand. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/pp1802J) Several new synthetic graphite plants are being built in the US.

As we've seen in rare earths, when the cheaper sources raise their prices, domestic production increases. It seems to take about three to five years to get a big mining operation going.

Quietly, during the previous administration, there was funding for US mineral projects in rare earths, graphite, and lithium. It's no secret, but most coverage is from sites that cover mining and minerals.

If European leaders don't watch this and realise they need to take control of their own destiny they're idiots. Several European leaders visited this week bending the knee to try and stave off tariffs. Time to stand up, realise the US is no longer a reliable ally, and start building (on all fronts - military, manufacturing, tech, etc). Given the American people voted for this guy twice - the second time in spite of Jan 6th and multiple indictments against him - there's no reason to believe the next person they vote in won't be worse.