The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that it plans to help countries around the world develop mineral resources such as lithium, copper and cobalt as part of a multi-pronged strategy aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on China's imports of key raw materials for high-tech industries.
The U.S. government has recently become increasingly concerned about dependence on mineral imports after Beijing hinted that rare earths would be used as a bargaining chip in the trade war with the United States, the world's largest economy. This will disrupt the production of a range of consumer goods, industrial products and military products, from mobile phones and batteries to fighter jets.
"More than 80% of the global supply chain of rare earth elements is controlled by one country," the State Department said in a briefing outlining the plan, called the Energy Resources Governance Initiative. "Dependence on any single source increases the risk of supply disruption."
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