[blorsh]

The USA has rare earth mines in California. They got shut down because China supported mining as a strategic asset, meanwhile the EPA was pretty sadistic. Getting that going again is trivial. If we match the legal situation in China, we're back in business.

Another big source is fly ash, which we get from burning coal. This actually has a decently high concentration of the more urgently needed elements. The more coal we burn, the more fly ash we have. Burn more, and get rare earth elements as a bonus.

The amounts needed are tiny. The only trouble with importing from China is that China considers control of rare earth elements to be part of a strategy to dominate the world. China restricts exports, and threatens to restrict them more. This is of course a national security issue for every other country in the world.