So is oil, and just about everything else.
Gas is sold at half what it should cost in the US.
The gold from the largest gold mine in the world (in Utah) is so diffuse in the ore, it can't even be seen with an electron microscope. Extraction is so expensive, it's not profitable. So the goverment pays for that end. Same with aluminum, which involves a complicated and expensive process to extract from boxite.
So mining and smelting one of the most expensive metals and the cheapeast one is funded by taxpayer dollars.
Even all those US factories going overseas - subsidized with tax breaks by the US goverment to do so. We are paying them to leave. Republicans refuse to rescind the laws they created to make this possible.