Earlier this year, the White House filed a request for consultations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding China’s export restrictions of rare earth metals. 

Rare earth metals are used in a broad range of manufactured products, including auto parts.

Because rare earth metals are so vital to high-tech manufacturing, the House Rules Committee is now considering a bill, H.R. 4402, that would speed up their development.  The bill could potentially reach the House floor this week.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has long been concerned with China's hoarding of such important materials.  As AAM Executive Director Scott Paul explained in March:

Over the past few years, our activists having been working hard to make sure their elected officials know just what is at stake on trade laws, surging auto parts imports from China, and China’s unfair trade practices such as rare earth mineral export restrictions. It appears that our leaders are finally beginning to listen.

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