Could Musk's unpopularity in Australia impact the election?

Their are 3 countries with rare earth minerals China, Australia, and greenland.

What ? Rare earths are everywhere, they are just difficult to extract and toxic as shit to procees, you also always have nuclear waste associated with it that is concentrated in the treatment process.

There's a reason Lynas set up a plant in Malayasia for thier WA mined ores, they would have been unlikely to get a license way back in the day becase of the toxic shit that comes from processing. They've already polluted large parts of the rainforested areas in Malaysia from tailings dam overflows.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-22/malaysians-divided-on-radioactive-waste-from-aussie-miner-lynas/11434122

Australia's advantage isn't it's massive rare earth windfall, it's that only a few "black fellas" live in or near vast areas that can be mined, so we just ignore them or throw them a few tokens as we rape and pillage the natural environment. Much of the rest of the world has people living on it.

There are all sorts of mineral deposits across Europe for example, look at Rio's large proposed Lithium mine in Serbia and the push back, why ? People... and not just indigenous people no one gives a shit about.

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/rio-loses-in-serbia-as-europe-s-biggest-lithium-mine-blocked-20220121-p59q3s

Serbia blocked plans for Europe’s biggest lithium mine – a flagship project of Rio Tinto new chief executive – in a dramatic response to local opposition

Their are 3 countries with rare earth minerals

There are more, and I don't know any specific REM primarily in those three countries. But yeah, they're three of the more important ones, alongside USA, India, Brazil, Russia and Paraguay.

Most of out trade is with China so us cutting us off has very little impact on our trade.

I think 'very little' is exaggerating (apparently 11% of imports and 5% of exports), but yep, we have other options if push comes to shove.

+1 for the soft power tools being their benefit rather than ours. +1 for us hosting critical intel bases.

Despite their name there are rare earth mineral deposits in many countries. Most rare earth metals were discovered in Scandinavia leading to elements like, well Scandium. Economically extracting those deposits is another question but we seem pretty good at digging.

You know I was thinking that rents have been climbing throughout the whole country. Maybe the government needs to take into account that Trump and his cronies are out there ratcheting up tensions internationally and posturing as bullies on a global stage, then apply a small rent increase on US bases on our soil. A lazy hundred billion or so for Pine Gap should cover a lot of trade shortfall and somewhat compensate for the extra risk we are shouldering. When Trump calls to posture about it tell him we will increase troops on the border to prevent fentanyl and crack down on the cartels, then offer him the same price and watch him Art of the Deal™ that into a negotiating victory for himself.