"In any political process there are small companies who lobby in one way or another and there's no question that is going on here," she said.
"There may be junior companies that think they can only stand up their project as long as they get money out of government. We are an operating and profitable business and so we will do what is right for the business, right for our customers.
"And, of course, it would be wonderful if we get some money out of a government and we are confident that we are the only firm that can do what the US government needs.
"One way or another, I'm sure the US government will purchase our material."
In April, the DoD notified Lynas of its intention to award the company a phase one contract to build a heavy rare earths separation facility in Texas in partnership with US company Blue Line.
The phase one support for design and planning was seen as stepping stone to additional funding towards construction costs of a project that was in the works well before the DoD expressed an interest.
However, critics hit out at the non-US aspects of the Lynas-Blue Line supply chain, which relies on Lynas mining rare earths in Western Australia and doing some processing in Malaysia.
Lynas announced on Friday that it understood any US government progress on phase one was on hold while political issues were addressed.
Ms Lacaze said on Tuesday that the DoD had only ever said it intended to award Lynas a phase one contract and there was never a timetable for any decision on funding.
Much of the heat in the US is coming from Wyoming senator Mike Enzi, who supports the Rare Element Resources project in his home state, and backers of the Round Top heavy rare earths and critical minerals project in Texas.
Lynas is the only producer of any scale of separated light rare earths material outside China and confident it has the mine resource, skill and capability to replicate that in heavy rare earths.
The company estimates it could have a heavy rare earths separation plant operating in Texas within 18 months of pushing the go button on its project with Blue Line.
Lynas' main focus is on building and commissioning a cracking and leaching plant at Kalgoorlie in WA, the state where it operates the Mt Weld mine, by July 2023.
Beyond that date Malaysia will no longer allow Lynas to perform cracking and leaching at its $1 billion processing plant at Kuantan because of concerns about low-level radioactive waste.
Ms Lacaze said that under current plans for Kalgoorlie heavy rare earths material would still need to go to Malaysia and then on to Texas for separation into dysprosium and terbium.
She said it was possible that by adding downstream capacity to the Kalgoorlie project – already expected to cost the best part of $500 million – Lynas could bypass Malaysia in the heavy rare earths supply chain.
However, Ms Lacaze said it was not an option on the table as Lynas focused on meeting the deadline for the cracking and leaching plant.
"The funding we are talking about in the US pales into insignificance alongside the capital ask in Kalgoorlie and in terms of some of the things we do in Malaysia so we are not going to turn our whole company on its head to be able to do that," she said.
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