The US may be ahead in other technologies, but rare earth elements are an exception. Without China's facilities, the US can't refine its own mined rare earths

The US literally lacks the industrial-scale hardware and environmental capacity to refine heavy rare earths. Processing rare earths produces massive toxic waste, acid, and radioactive byproducts something the US cannot handle domestically at scale.

China has been doing this for 40+ years as a state-backed program, that's why controls over 90% of global rare earth refining.