Reuters reports on the matter

According to a government document seen by Reuters, the US Army plans to fund construction of rare earths processing facilities as part of an urgent push by Washington to secure domestic supply of the minerals used to make military weapons and electronics.

For added context, it would mark the first financial investment by the US military into commercial-scale rare earths production since the Manhattan Project during WWII.

The full report can be found here.

In part, this also has much to do with the ongoing trade war with China as China refines most of the world's rare earths and had previously threatened to stop exporting them to the US - basically using their position as leverage in trade negotiations.

The move above essentially says that the US is looking towards establishing a more domestic-based rare earths supply chain so it'll be interesting to see how they can manage that to compete with the global monopoly by China at the moment.

All part and parcel of the art of the deal.

Trump