We have sources of rare earth minerals that could be utilized. Things like coal ash (fly ash) and material thats been processed for things like copper have higher concentrations. We lack facilities for refining the rare earth minerals. That's the big bottleneck.
Yes, I was in the Navy for 6 years. My wife was in for 8 1/2. We still have a bunch of friends that are currently active duty. My main argument is we have a lot of options outside of aircraft carriers. Hell, the Navy's 5th fleet is based in Bahrain.