Comment by AnthonyMouse

> The US can internally produce: food staples, fossil fuels and nuclear fuel, most (but not all) industrial chemicals and construction material, defense systems and major military equipment, generic drugs and many medical devices.

The US used to produce nearly all of those things and would benefit from having the industrial capacity to process rare earths even if some of the mining happens in Brazil or India or Australia.

> Lastly, what about the remaining 167 countries in the world (195 - US - EU)? 90% of the world's population live outside the US and EU.

They would then have the option to buy any of them from the US, the EU or China instead of having only one of those monopolize global production.