What happens when U.S. efforts to protect its agricultural prowess and China’s quest to eliminate its food insecurity meet head-on in the cornfields of Iowa?
Listen to our exclusive interview with author Mara Hvistendahl here.
“No. No. No.”
Mo Yun was flustered. The slim, 40-year-old Chinese citizen had just vacationed in California with her kids, where she had made good on a promise — a trip to Disneyland.
Now they were at their departure gate at Los Angeles International Airport, preparing to return to Beijing, when agents approached and announced that they had a warrant for her arrest. They explained that she would need to be separated from her five-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son.
The agents gave her two options: Put her children on a plane back to China alone to be met by a friend or relative, or keep them in Los Angeles, where they would be handed over to child protective services.
“You’re going to need to make a decision, OK?” a Customs and Border Protection agent told her. “Or we can make the decision. It’s up to you.”
Mo Yun chose to put her children on the flight to Beijing, alone.
For more than a decade, the U.S. has been sounding the alarm about China’s stranglehold on rare earths. Now with new investments and new operations at the Mountain Pass Mine in California, is it finally going to do something about it?
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