Well.... I can tell you this: Despite what China is saying, publicly, they HAVE indeed expanded the “reduction” in exports to.. a COMPLETE BAN on exports of RE to Japan and US.
My company has been trying to buy cerium for several weeks... we couldn’t find ANY, at ANY price. The one tiny lot we finally did locate (at a ridiculously inflated price) could not be shipped to the US. We have to route it through Rotterdam.
This is, if you ask me, pretty close to economic warfare.
“Experts say Vietnam is a key channel for smuggling rare earths and other minerals out of China.
About 20,000 tonnes of rare earths were smuggled out of China in 2009, according to a note by Eurasia Group analyst Damien Ma, supplementing legal exports through that year’s quotas of about 50,000 tonnes.”
Got any friends in Vietnam?
It's not "pretty close", it IS economic warfare! And it's been going on since the end of WW2, first with Japan. Then South Korea, Taiwan, and finally China. And they're winning.
Well, do what the Free Trade advocates advocate. File a complaint with the WTO.
I’m sure they’ll get RIGHT on this for you.