Key industries in the West were within weeks of shutting down last spring after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) levied export restrictions on seven heavy rare earths needed to manufacture magnets for everything from automobiles to F-35 fighter jets, according to United States Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

“We were going tit-for-tat” in renegotiating trade pacts, he told “American Thought Leaders” host Jan Jekielek in an Oct. 7 interview.