Beginning in January of 2027, The Department of Defense will require all defense contractors to provide proof of origin for all rare earths.  Certification begins at the mining level and continues to the point of delivery.  Every step will require physical and blockchain level chain-of-custody that may be subject to audit.  The same policy framework will be extended to other critical materials such as: Cobalt, Lithium, Graphite, Tungsten, Titanium, Gallium, Germanium, Niobium, Tantalum, Platinum‑group metals, etc.

Leaving the certification burden to individual defense contractors is unworkable (possibly affecting 1/3rd of the over 100,000 active defense contractors).  

The solution is to establish Certified China-Free Trading Platform For REEs and CMs.