BRYAN PRESTON: Afghanistan Retreat: Is Biden Merely Losing the Great Powers Game or Is He Deliberately Throwing It All Away? “Afghanistan has an estimated trillion dollars worth of rare earth minerals under its soil. Thanks in no small part to the country’s endemic instability, those rare earth minerals are still there. The United States could have used its 20 years battling to stabilize the country as cover to extract those minerals but chose not to. China controls an estimated 85 to 95% of the world’s rare earth mineral extraction right now.”

The United States has substantial rare earth mineral deposits, but doesn’t exploit them either.