President uses rare order to break China's hammerlock on critical metals

To the average American, China’s control of the world production, processing technology and stockpile of critical metals is not their concern. However, to our military and high-tech leaders, it is a very big deal.

Our government has a list consisting of 35 metals considered to be vital to our national economy and security. While 17 are classified as “rare earth” and are not commonly known, all are critical components of products such as smart phones, laptop computers, lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles jet engines, wind turbines, LEDs and sophisticated weapons systems.

The U.S. currently...