The United States is facing a rare earth shortage right before the Trump - Xi summit.

Reuters reports that the U.S. aerospace and semiconductor supply chains are critically lacking yttrium and scandium—two essential metals for defense, jet engines, lightweight alloys, and next-generation chip manufacturing.
Almost all of the supply of these two metals comes from China.
Since Beijing tightened export controls in April, yttrium exports to the U.S. have dropped to only 17 tons over 8 months, compared to 333 tons in the previous 8 months, nearly freezing the flow.
The U.S. currently has no commercially scaled domestic scandium production, with strategic reserves only enough for a few months. Some domestic rare earth mines still have to send ore to China for refining.
This places the aerospace, defense, and semiconductor industries in a direct dependency on a supply chain controlled by China.
Rare earths will become a key topic at the Trump - Xi summit in April.