The United States has captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flown him out of the country in a stunning military operation that plucked a sitting leader from office following months of escalating Trump administration pressure on the oil-rich South American nation.
Good old oil.
Rare earth metals aren’t really rare. They are literally everywhere, just in tiny amounts. So the only difficult part is to extract them.
And why do that when we can just bomb countries for their oil and keep both the petroleum industry AND the war machine churning!