Opinion

KASSAM: New Report From Stephen Moore Shows The Need To Make Uranium American Again

Raheem Kassam Contributor
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The dirty little secret in Washington, D.C. is that almost everyone in the establishment basically answers to a foreign paymaster.

It’s why Democrats got so hot under the collar about their Russia narrative. Between the attempts by the European Union — supported by the usual suspects — to annex Ukraine into the European Union, and the Democrats’ own dealings in the Eastern European state, they had to hit first for fear of being hit hardest by any foreign collusion investigations.

The same applies for China, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and beyond. John McCain doesn’t just turn up in Kiev during a revolution for nothing. He was — paid or unpaid — supporting an EU strategy to empire build in the largest globalist project of a generation.

Keeping foreign influence and impact away, as President Trump has sought to do with China, is no easy feat. But it starts with the repatriation of manufacturing, jobs, and core national infrastructure. (RELATED: KASSAM: Trump Transcript Shows Him Trying To Stop Corruption, Nothing Else)

This doesn’t mean restricting the free market, as some Never Trumpers would have you think the president is doing. It means leveling the playing field.

One key finding that geologist Ned Mamula and economist Stephen Moore have hit upon is that America’s uranium supplies are now 99 percent imported, with much of it coming from Uzbekistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

The reason for this near total dependence on foreign sources is by design. “Our global geopolitical adversaries provide massive financial and other support to their uranium mining entities, making it almost impossible for U.S. companies to compete,” the authors explain, adding “the biggest problem are the state-owned uranium producers within the Russian sphere of influence” who have “overrun the global nuclear market with subsidized uranium.”

As a result, the pair conclude in a new report, “private industry on which the nuclear fuel cycle has traditionally relied is on the verge of collapse.”

If things continue down this path, 2019 production in the U.S. would fail to power even one of the nation’s 97 reactors.

Just as energy independence in the way of shale has freed America in part from price fluctuations and geopolitical malevolence on oil prices, a sovereign superpower should not be reliant upon foreign governments, either friends or adversaries, to contribute the requisite amount of uranium for energy and defense purposes.

The authors point out that “nuclear energy provides 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, as well as 55 percent of our carbon-free power generation.”

The solution, however, doesn’t just rest with a shift in focus from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Some of the problems the American mining sector faces are self-imposed at a state level.

These include laws that restrict the length of time mines can remain on standby, which forces decommissioning; local uranium mining bans; and the cost of maintenance for non-producing mines.

The report’s authors don’t make any firm recommendations of how to rebuild capacity in the United States, but they repeatedly highlight the “predatory” behavior of both Russia and China in the sector.

“Benign neglect of America’s incredible mineral wealth is clearly not working — it absolutely must be replaced with a smart strategy that ensures reliable and affordable domestic uranium for years to come. This is not the current federal policy, and it needs to change before the nation’s domestic uranium mining capacity is permanently crippled,” the report states.

Take it from a Brit.

My country, the United Kingdom, has for years shifted our energy networks’ ownership to foreign hands, be they Chinese, or even worse, French!

Even the left-leaning Guardian newspaper noted last year that the United Kingdom was critical for China’s global power ambitions.

You won’t hear a peep about it from the likes of former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron or former Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom the Chinese have in their back pockets.

That’s why President Trump and his base need to take this bull by the horns and ensure America doesn’t go the route of Great Britain and others, which now have entire industries that are owned in part or in full by the Chinese Communist Party.

Raheem Kassam (@RaheemKassam) is a former adviser to Brexit leader Nigel Farage and author of two bestselling books: “No Go Zones” and “Enoch Was Right.”


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.