February 5, 2026· 42 min

This Is How The US Can Become a Player in Rare Earth Metals

Orality
Model
78%

Speaker Breakdown

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,934 words)
M:55%
HostTracy Alloway(1,334 words)
M:55%
GuestHeidi Crebo-Rediker(3,929 words)
M:54%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic45%
literally, completely, huge
Engagement70%
you, your, i'm
Memory Aids100%
now, so, like
Repetition100%
know (75x), they (67x), like (65x)
Parallelism76%
So if you need a last minute p..., And I'm Tracy Alloway...., And they're very interesting, ...
Sound Patterns61%
52 question(s), alliteration: "when work", alliteration: "idea into"
Formulaic Phrases7%
you know what, i mean, the thing is

Literate Indicators

Hedging7%
may, could, maybe
Passive Voice6%
be simplified, is perceived, be scaled
Abstract Nouns25%
management, business, investment
Subordination5%
because, while, until
Sentence Length38%
Avg: 14.4 words/sentence
Word Complexity51%
management, business, empower
Academic Markers0%
Impersonal Style30%
597 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style100%
literally, completely, luckily

Description

China's dominance of the rare earths market is well known. This not only creates potential vulnerabilities for companies, should access to those rare earths ever get cut off, it also gives China significant leverage in trade negotiations right now. Of course, the issue is not that China is naturally endowed with more of these materials, but rather that, over the decades, it's built up an industrial ecosystem to mine and process them. So, is there any prospect of the US entering the arena in a way that's actually competitive? Our guest says yes. Heidi Crebo-Rediker is a senior fellow in the Center for Geoeconomics Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier in her career, she was the US State Department's first chief economist. For the CFR, Heidi has undertaken an extensive study of the US position with respect to rare earths and developed a broad set of suggestions for how the US can actually compete. She discusses the resources we have right now, and the technologies and policies that could make the US competitive in this arena. Read the report here: https://www.cfr.org/report/leapfrogging-chinas-critical-minerals-dominance/ Read more: Why China’s Grip on Critical Minerals Is So Hard to Break EU to Offer US Critical Minerals Partnership to Check China Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.