President Donald Trump announced the launch of “Project Vault,” a nearly $12 billion initiative to build a strategic reserve of rare earth elements critical to modern technology and national defense. Retired U.S. Navy Captain Brent Sadler, senior research fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the Heritage Foundation and a former Pentagon official, joined NTD to explain how China came to dominate the rare earth supply chain, why the United States is racing to catch up, and what it will take for the United States and its allies to regain mineral independence.
