03/22/2026: Elemental Crisis, Turning the Ship Around, The Dog Aging Project

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1:07In our southwest of Las Vegas, in the guts of the Mojave, sits the only active rare earth mine in the U.S. An unlikely battlefield in our trade war with China, which has a near monopoly over these strategic metals. When Beijing choked off supplies last year, James Latinsky and his company got the call. We got called into the Pentagon, and it was clear that there was a directive from the president to solve this problem as quickly as possible. American shipbuilding is in shambles, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals. China makes roughly 1 ,000 cargo ships a year. The U.S.? Maybe three.

1:51At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity. The U.S. needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy. We are in a shipbuilding crisis in the United States, and every American should be aware of that. Dogs live alongside us and are exposed to the same environments. They exercise with us, eat our food, drink the same water. That's why researchers believe dogs may be one of man's best hopes to treat age-related illnesses. Cancer, dementia, all these diseases that we see as humans age occur in dogs. And you believe looking at dogs can help us not only help dogs, but humans as well?

2:36Yes, of course. Absolutely. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Althonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Leslie Stahl. Those stories, and in our last minute, one of this country's greatest athletes reflects on what brings out the best in America. Tonight on 60 Minutes.

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4:03Save up to 52 % off with code FOTW at GRUNS.CO. Last week, President Trump postponed a summit with his Chinese counterpart on account of the war with Iran. When Trump and Xi Jinping do meet, here's an agenda item bound to figure prominently—rare earth elements. Right now, China holds a near monopoly over these strategic metals that are key components in so much that makes the modern world go. Smartphones, robotics, EVs, also fighter jets, drones, and radar technology. That is, China controls materials essential to America's ability to wage war. Tonight, the story of an American company confronting this elemental crisis.

4:48It mines rare earth elements, processes them, and makes them into super-powered magnets. And it's part-owned by us, American taxpayers, in an unusual deal crafted by the federal government. In our southwest of Las Vegas, in the guts of the Mojave, Mountain Pass, California might be the ultimate front of our trade war with China. This massive cavity in the ground? Behold, the only active rare earth mine in the U.S. This is an unlikely battleground. Are we stepping on rare earths as we speak? Yes, everywhere you look is rare earths. And Michael Rosenthal and James Latinsky are the unlikely men in charge.

5:30Two Floridians in the snow, two finance types suddenly trafficking in mining and metallurgy. You have no background in geology, and now you're running the biggest rare earth line in the U.S. This is just such an important site. And the idea that this entire supply chain was on the other side of the world in China, it just occurred to us that someone had to help fix this problem. The Trump administration is keenly aware of the problem of China's rare earth dominance. Doug Burgum is Secretary of the Interior. If you have a cell phone, have a laptop, if you drive a car, then you're touching rare earth minerals and rare earth magnets.

6:11It's essential to everyday life, but it's also essential to aerospace, telecom, defense systems. Yes, defense systems. According to the military, one F-35 fighter jet contains about 100 pounds of rare earths incorporated into its various parts. Just to be clear, the U.S. defense industry is subject to the whims of China and Xi Jinping for military technology? Well, this is one of the reasons why President Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council with a broad set of objectives. One of those was to make sure that we had secure supply chains for critical and rare earth minerals. Right now, we don't have secure supply chains of rare earths because China has cornered the market.

6:54They also weaponize it because if anybody in the rest of the free world said, hey, we're going to start mining or we're going to start refining, then they would target that particular mineral, dump a quantity onto the market, drive the price down, and companies, including U.S. companies, that were profitable suddenly became unprofitable. Before we proceed, let's dispense with the misnomer. Rare earths aren't rare. Here's what is rare. Sites with high enough concentrations of rare earths and accessible enough locations to make extraction worthwhile. In their purest form, rare earths aren't rocks, but elemental metals.

7:30Deep cuts on the periodic table, numbers 57 through 71, in two others for those scoring at home. Lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium. Julie Klinger is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a rare earths expert who's visited mines worldwide and written extensively on the subject. What are their qualities? The thing that distinguishes rare earth elements are their fantastic magnetic, conductive, and optical properties. So they're used often the way you might use spices in cooking, because if you add just a little bit of a certain rare earth element, say, to a magnet, that enables that magnet to be both very small and very powerful.

8:14Geologists found rare earths at Mountain Pass in 1949. By the 60s, individual rare earths were being mined, separated, and utilized, not least europium, which enhanced the color red in early television sets. CBS presents this program in color. Then in 1982, researchers found that another, neodymium, strengthens magnets. And these super high-powered magnets are used in everything from, you know, making your cell phone buzz to the navigation components for drones and smart bombs to high-speed rail and electric vehicles. For decades, Mountain Pass was the world's rare earth mine. But gradually, then suddenly, mining and magnet making began moving offshore.

9:01Familiar story. China could do it cheaper. The U.S. disinvested in rare earths. Absolutely. Why? dirty business. It's a risky business. It's a difficult business to really break even. In the 1990s, Mountain Pass fell victim to economics and to environmental regulators after radioactive water leaked into the desert. The mine languished for a decade, until a new company, Mollicor, tried unsuccessfully to compete with China and revive the business. James Latinsky was running a Chicago hedge fund looking for value in distressed companies. When Mollicor filed for bankruptcy in 2015, Letinsky glimpsed opportunity.

9:42When you're running a hedge fund, there's not much tangible to it. You're moving numbers on a screen. And then I made the mistake of going out and looking at the site. Actually seeing what your investment looked like. Yes. And I was just blown away by the scale of the assets. The assets? This massive open pit, these concentric circles, a mine 3 ,000 feet across, 600 feet deep, with one of the world's richest deposits. Litinski turned to Michael Rosenthal, then working for a New York hedge fund. The two were close friends growing up, and they decided to partner. You appreciate the absurdity of the story, for sure.

10:22Two hedge fund guys buy a mine, what could go wrong? For a while, plenty. When they bought the mine in 2017, it was underwater, financially and literally. 30 million gallons had puddled at the bottom. There were only eight employees. They called their new company MP Materials and got the mine back up and running. Blasting earth, then crushing rocks into gravel, then milling it into fine powder. Latinsky took over the business as CEO, while Rosenthal spent long days on site becoming an expert on rare earth mining and refining. How do you characterize the division of labor here? I get dirty and Jim explains what we're doing.

11:05Today Mountain Pass employs more than 700. Rosenthal manages the operation. I cannot get over how extensive and intensive all of this process is once you're done with the actual mining. Yeah, the mining is really the easiest part. The hard part? Separating the rare earths from the rock and then each other. Two years ago, MP reached a milestone. After investing hundreds of millions of dollars, it was able to refine neodymium and praziodemium to 99.9 % purity. This is the refined product. This is the money room. This is it. This is it. Each bag was worth around$120 ,000. There were 300 bags, roughly$36 million in inventory when we visited.

11:54So this fine powder could end up in your pocket. Could end up in my iPhone. MP needed one last link to bypass China and reclaim the supply chain, making the final product, those high-powered rare earth magnets. So in Fort Worth, Texas, MP built this facility, where pure rare earth powder from mountain paths gets melted, cooled, compressed, diced, and eventually turned into, well, these. In a matter of months, millions will be going into GM cars and into Apple products starting next year. MP was fulfilling its business plan, taking rare earths from mine to magnets. Then, last spring, it alchemized from a vertically integrated business to a pivotal player in our national security.

12:40We will supercharge our domestic industrial base. Last April, President Trump unveiled his global tariffs plan, so-called Liberation Day. China retaliated to devastating effect, choking off rare earths to the U.S. Ford Motors, for one, suddenly without magnets, had to temporarily stop making Explorer SUVs. After a series of trade truces between the U.S. and China, the rare earth spigot came back on. Lutinski says few realize how close we were to economic catastrophe. There were major manufacturers that didn't even realize the extent of the rare earth magnets that they had in their supply chain.

13:21We were seeing the economy on the verge of shutdown. With markets reeling, senior Trump administration officials summoned Litinsky and Rosenthal to Washington. We got called into the Pentagon, and it was clear that there was a directive from the president to solve this problem as quickly as possible. What did the government want from you? The Pentagon wanted a Manhattan-style project to accelerate the entire supply chain of rare earth magnetics in the country. That's the analogy. Those exact words were used. Manhattan Project or Operation Warp Speed, we've got to work to scale up everything that you're doing as quickly as we possibly can.

13:59A Manhattan Project for rare earths resulted in an unusual deal. The Pentagon agreed to inject$400 million into MP materials and took a 15 percent ownership stake. So we Americans are all in the rare earth business now. Plus, critically, the deal came with a guaranteed 10-year price floor for rare earths. So even if China tries to flood the market again, driving down prices, MP is covered. Has there ever been anything like this? Well, exactly like this, maybe not. But if you look back, whether it was the railroads or aluminum for aviation prior to World War II or the semiconductor industry, there's actually a long tradition of really critical industries where our country needs to bring online infrastructure.

14:46And I think this is one of those industries. And the government had one more stipulation for MP. Ramp up rare earth magnet production tenfold. To do so, MP is building an even bigger rare earth magnet factory, also in Texas, that, it says, could produce enough to meet the country's needs. It's expected to be complete in 2028. Still, as we sit here today, what percentage of the world's rare earth magnets are made in China? Well north of 90%. So China, in effect, can still hold the world hostage here. They currently do. Back in Washington, Secretary Burgum has been a vocal supporter of stockpiling America's critical minerals.

15:26He defends the NP deal even if it strays from the principles of market capitalism. You're talking about equity positions in private companies and price floors, and in this case, a demand that production increases 10x, 10-fold. Wait a second, that is the whiff of socialism. I wouldn't call it socialism. I'd certainly call it pragmatism because free markets work, but they don't work if you have an adversary that controls a monopoly that control the price. You're talking China. I'm talking about China. There's no market setting the price. It's China setting the price. To get this industry started again, we have to do some things to kickstart the private capital.

16:06This kind of industrial policy you're talking about, does this happen but for China's retaliation to last April? I think it was a catalyst. Frankly, we probably needed a crisis to wake up. And so I think if there's a silver lining in the sense, what happened last year was a big-time crisis that we needed. I'm struck by how quickly the economics bleed into geopolitics. If China says, listen, we're going to go invade Taiwan, and if you stand in our way, we're shutting off our rare earth magnets. Well, that's the risk. As it stands today, we need permission from the Chinese government to make things.

16:46We need permission from the Chinese government to make military things. And the practical reality is that it's not an acceptable condition. And so we have to change this dynamic. The current U.S.-China trade truce is set to expire in eight months. Absent a new deal, our rare earth supply, short-term anyway, remains vulnerable.

17:40We'll see you next time. Go check out your nearest Croc store. You deserve that in-person moment. The war in Iran is highlighting the importance of ships, not just warships, but cargo vessels, like those carrying oil or gas trapped near the Strait of Hormuz. But American shipbuilding is in shambles due to decades of short-sighted policies and neglect. Our submarine building program is sluggish, and our commercial shipbuilding is nearly extinct. China makes roughly 1 ,000 cargo ships a year. The U.S., maybe three. The Trump administration has called this a national security crisis. But can this ship be turned around?

18:30This is the Philadelphia shipyard, one of only two left in the U.S. building large commercial cargo ships. Once a symbol of American might and innovation, ships built here helped win our independence in the 18th century and World War II in the 20th. $18 million worth of floating defense. This shipyard has become a symbol of American industrial decline, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals. And it still uses a crane from 1942. Now talk about a metaphor of how far behind we are. A lot of times people call it a dinosaur. What else is a dinosaur? Almost everything that you've seen out there.

19:18David Kim, the new head of the Philly shipyard, showed us around. He works for Hanwha, a giant shipmaker from South Korea, the country making most ships after China. Hanwha bought the yard in 2024 for$100 million, then poured in another$100 million and tasked Kim, a Korean-American born and bred in Texas, to bring it into the 21st century. How many ships do you actually make here? Here at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard, we deliver one to one and a half ships a year versus our yard in Korea where they deliver basically one a week. What? One a year for delivery versus one a week? That's correct. Not building ships in the U.S.

20:07is considered a national security threat because if there's a conflict with China, for instance, Beijing could weaponize its substantial merchant fleet and cut us off from global goods. Hanwha plans to spend$5 billion in Philly and has already sent 50 trainers from Korea to teach American workers. Our aspiration is to get to up to 20 ships a year here at the shipyard. So we come back in two years. How different will it look? You will see robots. You will see automation equipment. And we're looking to grow the workforce by, call it, 7 ,000 to 10 ,000 people. Sounds great. Only there's a huge shortage in the U.S.

20:53of skilled labor in shipbuilding, including welders and pipe fitters. This work is grueling, freezing in winter, scorching in summer, and it's dangerous. And while the yard has a training program, it can only train 20 or so new hires at a time. And it takes three years. Still, apprentices Justin, Jeff, and Meg told us this beats their old jobs. I worked at Amazon as a grocery picker. Before this job, I was a cake decorator at a bakery. And a nanny. And a nanny as well, yes. I worked many jobs. If you were to pitch this job and this place to a friend, what would you say? I would tell my friend that instead of paying out of pocket to go to a trade school, You're getting paid while you learn here the entire time.

21:48They pay you? Yes. And health care. And health care, which is amazing. But aren't the conditions really harsh? Not the easiest work. Like, I go home. Granted, I'm more tired, but it's more fulfilling to me. It makes you feel like you're part of something bigger. But not only are workers scarce and the yard outdated, The Philly shipyard has to bring key components to the U.S., such as propellers and even the engine. So ships that take six months to build in Korea or China can take twice as long here and cost five times as much. And who will buy them? There's no doubt that we have challenges and headwinds, but I also think we have a unique moment in time.

22:37Michael Coulter, who's Hanwha's top executive in charge of U.S. operations, says the way to lower prices is scale up production. So you're saying if we build more ships, then the cost per ship will come down? Significantly.

22:59It's so busy here. It is busy. He took us to Hanwha Shipyard in Korea, where nine ships are being built at once, four in a row, like Lego sets the size of football fields. Steel chunks bigger than buildings hover over the ground. They're lifted above the water, or they just glide by. He showed us how far ahead they are technologically. Rows and rows of robots. But even with all the automation, the human workforce keeps growing. There are over 26 ,000 workers on site, many getting around on low-tech, because this place is so vast. And the yard keeps hiring, training 400 workers at once, way more than the 20 in Philly.

23:57And they're taught using cutting-edge virtual reality. He's learning to paint. It's a dance of tech, cranes, trucks, and bikes. And this yard also builds military vessels, including submarines, which the U.S. desperately needs since our fleet is aging and we can barely make new ones. From a Hanwha perspective, we build great submarines. Here in Korea? Here in Korea, yes. We have told the U.S. government that if they so wish, we will build submarines for them in the United States and in Philadelphia, just like we do in Korea. Is the ultimate goal for your company to build nuclear submarines for the U.S.

24:41Navy? The submarine program in the United States is heading in the wrong direction, and we think we can help. Another way Hanwha says it wants to help the U.S. is with transporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG, hoping to build these giant LNG tankers in Philly. The United States is the largest producer of natural gas, and yet we don't have any LNG ships that we make ourselves. Is that correct? That's correct. Not a single one. This leads to an absurd situation. While we export LNG on foreign carriers to over 30 countries, one country we don't send it to is other parts of the United States. Colin Grabo, a trade expert at the Libertarian Cato Institute, explains that a century-old law called the Jones Act requires that any cargo shipped between U.S.

25:37ports, say from Baltimore to Boston or Seattle to Juneau, that cargo has to be on an American-made ship. So if the cargo is LNG, it has to be on an American-made LNG ship. But we don't build any. That's right. There aren't any. And you might think, well, this seems like an easy problem to solve. Go build the ship, transport the gas. Except the math doesn't work. If you want to build one of those ships in Asia, the cost is around$260 million. Here in the United States, about a billion dollars. Well, wait, are there parts of this country that cannot get natural gas because of this law? That's right.

26:16New England. In winters, New England has to import pricier natural gas from abroad, even though it's extracted only a few states away. In fact, Puerto Rico imported Russian natural gas the same month as Russia invaded Ukraine. No. So we take a stance against Russia. On the other hand, we're importing their energy, something that we have in abundance. You can't make this stuff up. Last year, President Trump made solving our ship crisis a national priority, signing an executive order, creating a multi-agency action plan, and a White House office of shipbuilding. We're way, way, way behind. We used to build a ship a day, and now we don't do a ship a year practically.

26:58But the White House has conflicting priorities. So here's the administration. It wants to build ships, and they're putting huge tariffs, 50%, on steel, which is the main component in a ship. What's wrong with that picture? Yes, this is one of the paradoxes of the Trump administration. We're artificially increasing the cost of building ships in this country. So why can't shipbuilders just use American-made steel? There's no tariffs on those. That's true. But when we put heavy tariffs on imported steel, we drive those costs up, that's a great opportunity for Americans to raise their own price. What we note is today, American steel is roughly twice as expensive as steel in, say, China.

27:41What you're saying is when the price of steel goes up because of tariffs, then the American steel manufacturer hikes the price of steel? These are profit-oriented enterprises. He actually thinks we should be able to just buy and use ships from our allies, South Korea, not build them. And he points to another conflicting White House priority, making it harder to grant skilled immigrants work visas. Traditionally, a lot of immigrants have been willing to this kind of work, and yet we are turning our back on immigration and adopting a more hostile stance. The administration seems to be fighting its own policy.

28:21Yes. It didn't help when last September ICE raided a Korean battery plant in Georgia, alleging visa violations. Agents dragged off 300 Korean technicians and engineers in cuffs and chains, despite their coming here to train American workers. Hanwha's Michael Coulter says this caused a backlash in Korea. Have you been assured that what happened in Georgia will not happen in Philadelphia? We've been assured that our visas are the right visas and our team is not going to be impacted. The White House is committed to making ships here. So last year, when President Trump threatened to put tariffs on Korean imports, Korea's president offered instead to invest$150 billion to revive the U.S.