Acknowledging the essential role mined materials play in national security, economic stability and supply chain resilience, yesterday the USGS announced that it was expanding its so-called list of Critical Minerals, adding minerals such as boron, copper, metallurgical coal, phosphate, silver and uranium. The move is a smart one by the administration, but here at the National Mining Association, we believe what is considered critical today might change tomorrow given both the rapid pace of innovation and changing global events.

Emphasizing just how tricky it is to wean ourselves off of our minerals dependence on China, and just how important government support is, MP Materials recorded a wider loss in the third quarter after it stopped selling to China as agreed in its equity deal with the U.S. government.

And China's Ministry of Commerce announced today that it had suspended for a year export controls that it issued last month. The controls lifted include those on the transfer out of China of rare earth processing equipment. The announcement notably, however, did not include any information on the general licenses for the export of critical minerals that the White House were said were part of the recent deal between China and the US.

The suspension of these rules is set to last until Nov. 10 next year.