Bloomberg: The Pentagon is weighing whether to scrap an $80 million conditional loan offer to ReElement Technologies Corp., a rare-earths refiner, due to doubts about the company’s ability to scale its technology and long-term revenue forecasts.
The loan offer is part of a bigger $1.4 billion critical-minerals agreement that aims to help break China’s chokehold on critical minerals, and the deal’s potential cancellation has sparked a clash with the White House.
The White House and the Pentagon have differing views on the deal, with the White House criticizing the Pentagon’s handling of the deal and the Pentagon defending its due diligence process as necessary to ensure the success of the critical-minerals effort…