Transcript of Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi's Opening Statement from Hearing on How the Chinese Communist Party Manipulates Global Mineral Prices to Maintain Its Dominance

November 19, 2025
Press Release

WASHINGTON – Today, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party held a hearing on how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manipulates global mineral prices to maintain its dominance and further its global authoritarian ambitions. The hearing follows a bipartisan investigation titled “Predatory Pricing: How the Chinese Communist Party Manipulates Global Mineral Prices to Maintain Its Dominance.” The following witnesses provided testimony: 

Below is a transcript of the opening statement from the Ranking Member. Footage of the Ranking Member’s opening statement can be found here, and his questions to the witnesses can be found here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the holidays upon us, I'd like to play a familiar Charlie Brown clip that we may all see next week. 

As you can see, just when Charlie is about to kick the ball, Lucy pulls it out from under him, as she always does. And that's exactly what's happening with the U.S. and China. The CCP is running the same old economic playbook in different industries, and we're falling for it again and again.

Here's the playbook.

First, the CCP makes much more stuff than their domestic market requires.

Second, they export the excess stuff below their cost. By doing this, they pull the rug out from under non-Chinese companies trying to compete.

And then third, once the CCP has killed the competition, they weaponize their monopoly for coercive purposes.

Last week, this committee released a 52-page bipartisan investigation into how the CCP uses this playbook to dominate critical minerals and, by extension, our supply chains. America once led the world in rare earth production. But those days are gone. China, as you can see, has surged production, flooding world markets. But the CCP didn't just produce more. They sold critical minerals at unfair prices, even below the cost of production. In doing so, they killed their competition and created a monopoly.

If private companies colluded to kill off their competitors, their executives would be in these handcuffs. But because this massive price-fixing conspiracy was orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party, it's us, not them, that find ourselves in handcuffs.

This is a rock. Inside these types of rocks are rare earths which eventually get processed and made into these—these magnets.

What you might not know is that there's a magnet in every motor. And motors aren't just in cars, but in so many devices that we depend on, including this blender.

Mr. Chairman, care for a smoothie?

You could thank me and the magnets that helped power this blender later. America used to be the world's leading producer of magnets until 1998. But then we got played. Just take the story of MagnaQuench, a GM subsidiary which had a large magnet factory in Indiana. Chinese investors bought it and agreed to keep the Indiana factory open for five years. But five years and one day later—I'm not making that up, five years and one day later—guess what happened? They shut down the magnet factory in Indiana and moved all production to China.

Here's a picture of this MagnaQuench factory in China.

Now that China dominates rare earths and magnets, they have the power to not just unplug this blender, but our entire economy. But the keys to unlock our handcuffs are right here in this room.

Niron produces the world's only permanent magnet that uses zero rare earths.
MP Materials operates the only rare earth mine in America—Mountain Pass, California—which is pictured behind me.

And Lithium Americas is developing the largest lithium deposit in the U.S.

If these companies fail, the CCP wins. But if these companies succeed, we all win. And that includes the Chinese people themselves.

Some of us may recall the 2005 movie Blood Diamond about African diamonds mined using forced labor. Well, it turns out the CCP is mining many of its critical minerals using Weaguer forced labor. So, here's my proposal for a fictional sequel. It's called Blood Minerals, a movie about how China is exploiting its own people to mine critical minerals and then weaponize its monopoly against Americans.

This is unacceptable. I think it's time for a Manhattan-Project-like effort to end our rare earth dependency on China. But if we just increase production and not the tools and the talent, we won't solve the problem. We need to mine, refine, and train the workers who can do it.

So, let this investigation be our call to action.

Right now, back home in Chicago, Mr. Chairman, my beloved Chicago Bears are seven and three because they stopped just playing defense and they started playing offense. Chairman, let's be like the Bears and show the CCP how it's done.

Thank you, and I yield back.

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