Last week, China’s Ministry of Commerce published a document that went by the name of “announcement No. 62 of 2025”.
But this wasn’t just any bureaucratic missive. It has rocked the fragile tariffs truce with the US.
The announcement detailed sweeping new curbs on its rare earth exports, in a move that tightens Beijing’s grip on the global supply of the critical minerals - and reminded Donald Trump just how much leverage China holds in the trade war.
China has a near-monopoly in the processing of rare earths - crucial for the production of everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
PSA: rare earth’s aren’t rare. It’s the separation from each other and the bulk of earth that makes it cumbersome. It’s basically processing capacity that China has today.
Invest in local processing plants.
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So that capability and competency is domestic. The competitive edge is in being independent.
It would also be very cheap if local production were held to the same environmental and labour standards as it is there.
If we are fine with others shouldering the environmental and labour burdens for our cheap products, we should be fine with doing it ourselves.
If we are not, we should not be buying products that don’t adhere to our standards.
then the entire western economy would collapse.
Indeed. That’s also very telling. The entire Western market is built on offloading undesirable waste, labour practices to ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
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I’m not sure if you’ve been in the materials industry for long, but the margins aren’t all that large there, and much of it is used to mitigate risk in the heavily fluctuating market.
As a known .ml hater, nah man — they’re right. What you’re suggesting is extremely hypocritical. Do you realize how much better the U.S.’ current circumstances would be if instead of offshoring all of our factories we 1) held them to stronger environmental safety standards 2) didn’t fucking close them. Actually, the world would likely be much better off.
We’re in this mess because a shitload of people have willfully ignored the real cost of having their supermarket packed with meat 100% of the time, no exceptions. The real cost, 17.42 megatonnes of Co2 in 2022, from iPhone production alone. The real cost of their freedoms being paid for in blood and sweat from Chinese/Indian and 3rd world sweatshops.
So, yes, if we’re unwilling to shoulder environmental and labour burdens for our products — we should not have those products.
Yes they will charge you more, because there’s toxic waste involved and it can be expensive to handle in an environmentally friendly way. It’s cheaper to refine rare earths by just dumping the toxic waste on the ground, which is what China does and it’s how they cornered the market.
This is one of the cases where tariffs are good. Produce the rare earths the right way (even if it costs more) and slap tariffs on products that are produced in ways that damages the environment (as China does).
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Actually, I got the information about China’s handling of toxic waste from processing rare earths from Australian news (ABC).
Where do you get your information from? Some influencer on TikTok? Those people are for entertainment only and consider who’s choosing which content you see.
China spent the last 2 decades investing in infrastructure, energy, heavy industry and manufacturing while we were… doing what exactly? Selling smartphone apps to each other, pumping crypto, gig economy and letting private equity gut our services?
You are correct but also are missing something. As far as tech services go, the US is (but rapidly decline as due to Trump) a titan. But like I said, right now and especially in the last 10 years they have been going through some extremely serious enshitification of the internet, internet services, and a plethora of other stuff. As far as I am concerned the past 10 years have been extremely static in a lot of development.
Where my holodecks at?
No it just the ever growing feeling of sameness and nothing new coming up.
As a young kid in the late 80s and early 90s I saw shit just go from big to bigger in only a few years. Jokes about computers becoming obsolete the moment they are shipped were everywhere. Graphics and computing power exploded in the 90s and all the way until the 2010s and… things didn’t seem to be that much different. A computer I would have had in 2000 would be aching for a replacement in 2005, and the same from 2005 to 2010 and so on. But now I feel like a computer I would have had from 2015 or 2018 would not be too far behind today.
Maybe things got more efficient. But it just seemed like things haven’t changed that much. I mean they did. Cloud computing has gotten huge, but in terms of users and usability things haven’t budged.
How many years does it take to get a processing plant up and running? Longer than Donald has to live, I’ll bet.
Probably, considering the average lifespan of a dementia patient. However, processing capacity could be built quickly* if it were a priority. It’s just that the private sector isn’t capable of creating or funding that priority on its own, so a competent government is required.
*years rather than decades
Well, since they’re disappearing all of the laborers…
I guess the good news is that he only has 2 years or less left?
Yes, resource availability isn’t the issue, and “just invest more” has some massive hurdles:
- China has over 25,000 patents in the field of rare earths
- China doesn’t have the strict environmental-protection regulations like much of the rest of the world. It keeps the price very low, but at great cost to its environment from toxic run-off and the like
- Complex, expensive solvent extraction processes require extensive experience that China is well ahead of the rest of the world on
- China has a highly integrated supply chain from mining to finished product manufacturing
All these mean any processing outside of China is going to be incredibly expensive and competitively unprofitable. It’s not impossible to do, and removing dependence from China is probably worth it, but it’s going to take a lot of capital and time to achieve and sustain.
Can’t we just do tariffs that cripple our already dwindling industrial capacity and give tax cuts to rich people who don’t need them?
Sure, but like, they sound rare. It’s right in the name. That’s why dumbass Trumpo behaves like China is hoarding rare jewels from him and cries for Mommy to do something.
Invest in local processing plants.
Do you want environmental degradation and pollution with processing rare earths? Because that’s the main reason why many countries avoid doing it because it will be met with opposition from their electorates.
That’s only because we want cheap rare earths. If we wanted rare earth’s without the environmental fallout, it would be expensive even if done in China. We’re simply offloading our environmental waste to others.
The reality is that China is about the only country willing to process the rare earth minerals because of how incredibly toxic it is to the local populace. Many countries could choose to invest in processing plants but are unwilling to subject their citizens to the cancers they invariably cause.
Maybe that’s too generous. The wealthy don’t want them around, and it’s bad business to get your labor force unable to work.
I don’t know if environmental protection is high on trump’s list, along with the welfare of ‘illegal migrants’.
Wasn’t very hard to find. Trump hasn’t shut up about it since he got elected.
I’ll be honest, I missed it purely because of his verbal diarrhoea.
Not hard to find, but hard to properly leverage.
This is the result of a multi-year effort by China to insulate themselves from very specific retaliatory measures i.e. leverage the USA had over them, but not any longer.
Wild that China is the only one that learned from Trump in 2016, and prepare for what was coming.
Of course, most of that is what China’s been doing anyway for a couple decades, so that may be more coincidental.
it was patently obvious from the beginning of his “I want Canada and Greenland RIGHT NOW!” phase.
Donald Trump is a goddamn fucking moron
True. IIRC during his first administration he backed the U.S. out of the international treaty that governed minig ocean floor rare earth deposits because the U.S. didn’t have a dispropotionate amount of power compared to other treaty signatories.
That’s just China’s goto for any international being, as they’re literally the only ones capable/willing of processing them.
If only we knew how to… I dunno… invest in something other than Lithium. Something ubiquitous and cheap… like sodium.
Nahhhh
Nahhhh
*angry upvote
Nahhhh
I see what you did there
Your point is valid but less relevant. Lithium is an alkali metal found in different sources than rare earths, with Australia and South America producing the most.
Rare earths are expensive to refine which is why western mines and refineries have been outcompeted by China. If we were to subsidise local production we’d have an abundance, e.g. from Scandinavia.
Expensive to process safely and in an ecologically-conscious manner. Aka expensive in money but it’s important to note the environmental damage these processing plants can do when unregulated.
They could’ve asked him about his buddy pedo Jeff as well. He gets real pissy about that
Sounds extremely rational in the context of US trade policies.
It’s not new, and it’s known to China and any half-intelligent observer forever. Rare earths are the only lever China has on US. US on the other hand has a chokehold on China’s throat, its economic future and present: AI chips, and the largest single export market for China’s economic engine while its economy falters - its exports. Trump has the leverage, and he’s bargaining hard.
From everyone I’ve spoken to that’s been to China, there is no competition the U.S. has anymore. We were already pretty screwed to “compete” in the world race, but once Trump was elected to office we gave up what little run we had left. We have some serious stuff to cover locally in our own country before we can truly compete again.
Mit dem Angriff Steiners wird das alles in Ordnung kommen.
You’re either a propaganda bot or someone facing propaganda toxicity.
You are sadly not well informed on the global trade and economics. Read my comment history. I don’t like China or Trump. Both are authoritarian regimes and fascists. I suppose that makes you in favor of China and a Chinese bot on a Western discussion board?
Ok, propaganda bot
your name, Xulai is Chinese isn’t it? You need to be more clever about faking yourself as a “Westerner” Chinese bot.
