(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will give $35 million to MP Materials Corp. to process heavy rare earth elements at a facility in Southern California as part of a bigger push to challenge foreign dominance in a critical field.

The U.S. has lagged far behind countries like China and Canada in extracting lithium, cobalt, and rare-earth elements that are crucial to the manufacture of modern electronics. Officials say that dependence on foreign trade has created national security and economic vulnerabilities.

Tuesday’s announcement comes amid a drive by the White House to shore up supply chains and domestic manufacturing. Shortages and bottlenecks during the coronavirus pandemic have crippled manufacturing in key industries and driven inflation to its highest level since the early 1980s. 

The Las Vegas-based mining company plans to announce it will invest an additional $700 million and create more than 350 jobs in the magnet supply chain by 2024, the White House said. The aim is to establish for the first time a full domestic supply chain for permanent magnets - a key component of motors for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and even missile guidance systems.

The president will also announce Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co.’s plans to build a new facility near the U.S-Mexico border to test the viability of a new sustainable lithium extraction process. If successful, the company could accelerate efforts to harvest lithium from the Imperial Valley, which holds large deposits of a key component of advanced batteries and electronics.

(Adds details in fourth paragraph. A previous version corrected the description of MP Materials investment.)

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