Trump's two contrasts and China's rare earths

 At the NATO meeting in the Netherlands, June 24-25, 2025, President Trump was lavishly praised for having succeeded to make almost all NATO European members spend up to 5% on defense. That was deserved, it is a major success! But then, when questioned about possible less than good results of his bombing of Iranian nuclear sites three days earlier, he idiotically praised the pilots who flew the planes, adding 'these courageous men have been hurt by the press' as the NYT and Washington Post were  publishing doubts about these results. That he should feel to come up with this totally irrelevant talk about the pilots, while he had this 5% success, is a strange contrast. He made himself ridiculous, on the same day he received gigantic and deserved praise.

The second contrast is in his attitude rowards China's growing threat. On the one hand, he has the correct intuition that there is something wrong there, and that this wrong must be put right. But then, he went about it in a totally unprepared way, resulting in chaos, even stock markets reacting. What a strange contrast, again.

He was then forced to backpedal his tariffs on Chinese goods from 145%, that would have been effective, down to 50%, which will have no effect at all, as he was threatened by China that they would stop delivering rare earths that the US industry needs. This 50% tariff will still leave Chinese products cheaper that what can be made in the US. POTUS is thus being forced to concession by China's near monopoly in these earths. 
It is is now becoming vital that the US find their own sources of rare earths, wherever that may be on earth.