Watching Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lay out the facts on Fox’s Ingraham Angle should make every patriotic American sit up and pay attention — the rare-earth magnet fight with China is real, and it’s finally being treated like the national-security crisis it is. Bessent said negotiators have secured a framework to get magnets and critical minerals moving again while preserving U.S. leverage, and he even predicted a deal could be wrapped up by Thanksgiving.
Make no mistake: this administration used tariffs the way American strength should be used — as leverage, not surrender — and Bessent openly described how that pressure forced Beijing to blink on shipments and licensing. He warned that China’s threats to weaponize export controls on rare-earths were dangerous, and that the U.S. made countermeasures until China complied with the agreed terms.
Listen to the substance: Bessent explained that the magnets started flowing again under a Chinese licensing regime, and that the U.S. will lift its countermeasures only when supplies are verifiably restored. That’s responsible, tough diplomacy — demanding results, not PR headlines — and it shows a White House willing to use real economic tools to protect American manufacturing and national security.
Still, patriotic Americans should not be complacent; senior reporting has made clear that China’s decades-long strategy gave it a critical edge in rare earths and magnets, and rebuilding that industrial base won’t happen overnight. The hard truth Bessent acknowledges is this is a strategic race — we can praise the current pressure campaign, but we must simultaneously sprint to mine, refine, and produce here at home so China never holds that choke point again.
Congress, state leaders, and private industry ought to take Secretary Bessent’s warnings as a call to action: accelerate permitting, cut red tape, incentivize domestic processing, and back our defense supply chains with urgency. This administration has shown the backbone to stand up to Beijing and protect American jobs; now it’s time for policy and patriotic investment to finish the job so our children aren’t left begging for the raw materials our manufacturers need.
