So they're not fans of industrial policy or this new whatever this is.

Well, but here's the thing.

There's no realistic way in which the private sector alone, even in the United States, And we have the world's greatest private sector, speaking in the aggregate.

We can't beat a nation.

Doesn't happen.

Particularly when you need so many different elements of the economy to work cohesively together.

If there is no vision supplied, no coordination results.

Is that realistic as you're looking at it right now? And if we're not there, then what happens?

So to start, can you give us an update on how things have been going with American Rare Earths in the last six months or so?

With great pleasure because it's a good news story.

I am gonna start with people because to me, people are the foundation upon which all success is built.

And we have a dynamic CEO named Mark Wall, and Mark has been using his industry experience and connections to assemble a really strong, highly productive team of professionals.

So together, those folks have been really advancing our project.

Case in point, Mark made a strategic decision that instead of us investing directly in both time and money in building our own pilot plant, it would be more advantageous to us to find a partner to cooperate with.

And that is why we are working with the Saskatchewan Research Council, SRC, to do that pilot plant work for us to produce our oxide to demonstrate that we indeed have a functional flow sheet that does produce highly important oxide concentrate.

And maybe just for the general lay audience, like why is allanite considered difficult? What has, you know, at a high level, been the breakthrough that opens up these new opportunities geologically and from a mining perspective? Like, uh, you know, a little bit more on that would be interesting for the audience.

Would you like to add anything? Well,

I'm going to start by agreeing with Jack on two fundamental things.

Trump administration is determined to pursue a mercantilist economic policy.

where the strong survive and the weak are eaten by the strong.

And that is the fundamental rule of trade.

So I 100% agree with Jack on that.

I also agree that while, you know, this is a typical bold statement by the administration and particularly by the president himself, it is subject to override.

Nothing at all, as usual.

So how has that concept of social license to operate changed since you transitioned from government to industry?

It really has evolved because when I first got into the mining sector, we had this thing called CSR, corporate social responsibility, and it more or less came with a checklist.

So, you know, if you build schools and you build clinics and you build roads and you do some fundamental work on the ground in terms of maybe improving, you know, buying produce from the local community, et cetera, you've checked your boxes, and so CSR, you're done.

Okay, that's great.

Let's move on.

That evolved into ESG, which took a much broader look and a much-- put a much heavier emphasis on environmental factors because ESG stands for environment, social, governance.

So governance actually is very easy.

How are we moving away from some of the legacy mining and processing of the past towards new methods these days?