The first rare earth mine in the United States in 70 years opened in Wyoming on Friday.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at the ribbon cutting for the Ramaco Resources Brook Mine: “Anything in your life that has a button, you start your car with the button or your dishwasher or your refrigerator, your washing machine, your F-35 fighter jet — all of those things have rare earth elements playing a critical role in the design and the operation of those products. It's an industry that infiltrates everything with a button, which in a modern world is almost everything.”
Wright said the Trump Administration places a high priority on breaking China's dominance in rare earth processing.
"That industry today is completely dominated by China. Completely," he said. "They don't mine all of it, but even the stuff that's mined elsewhere” has to be processed in China.
It’s that country’s goal to “have a purposeful effort to completely control that industry."
The operation, located outside Ranchester in northeast Wyoming, will extract rare earth elements directly from coal, creating what officials called a "twofer" for American energy independence.
Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman said Friday's opening of the Brook Mine "is the dawn of a new era in American energy and national security. For over 70 years, the United States has relied almost entirely on foreign sources, particularly China, for critical minerals essential to our economic economy and defense. That defense, that dependency, is vulnerability. Today, that changes, thanks to the vision and leadership of Ramaco Resources.
"We are reclaiming our independence by tapping into the vast reserves of rare earth elements right beneath our feet, right here in Wyoming."
Hageman said the mine will improve America's supply chains and be an economic driver for Wyoming.
It will "create high-paying jobs, fuel economic growth in rural communities, reduce our dependence on China for refining and strengthen our national defense. It's vital for domestic magnet manufacturing," Hageman added. "This means high-paying jobs for Wyoming families, economic opportunity in our rural communities, stronger supply chains and a more secure America.
"Refineries and magnet manufacturers will once again be able to call the U.S. home and minimize reliance on foreign adversaries. But we are not just strengthening our national security. We are becoming champions of abundance."
🚨 The U.S. is opening its first Rare Earth mine in more than 70 years— providing a critical supply of six of the seventeen Rare Earth elements that are used in everything from war planes to semiconductors to our smartphones. pic.twitter.com/36LnJsDIWq
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 11, 2025
Free Press International
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