Posted on 05/20/2019 10:30:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
China is threatening to take the trade war to the next stage: cut off rare earth metal supplies to US technology and defense industries.
That’s according to a couple of Globaltimes editorials.” US faces squeeze on rare earths,” says one editorial. “US need for rare earths an ace on Beijing’s hand,” goes another.
“Without a reliable domestic supply, the US must rely on rare earths from China to supply industries of strategic importance,” acknowledges Hu Weijia, author of the second editorial.
“Rare earths are vital to many modern technologies and a wide array of weapon systems used by the US military, but China controls the vast majority of the world's supply,” adds Weijia.“It will take many years if the US wants to rebuild its rare-earth industry and increase its domestic supply to reduce its dependence on China's minerals.”
That’s a long time, long enough for China to “win a trade war against the US, during which time China's monopoly on the production of rare earths will help Beijing control the lifeblood of the US high-technology sector.”
Ted Bauman, Senior Research Analyst and Economist at Banyan Hill Publishing, agrees. “If the Chinese implement an export ban and can ride out six months of U.S. tariffs, it could well force Trump to concede,” he says.
Still, he thinks that’s bad idea for China to throw this weapon into the arsenal of the trade war because “China will be seen by the rest of the world as an unreliable trading partner for these critical minerals, leading to rapid development of alternative sources.”
Meanwhile, America could search for new suppliers elsewhere.
“Another potential effect could be the U.S. finding or creating another place to potential mine these minerals,” says Jordan Awoye, Managing Partner at Awoye Capital.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Share Groundbreaking Report: U.S. Reliant on China, Russia, Other Foreign Nations for Many Critical Minerals
"I commend the team of scientists at USGS for the extensive work put into the report, but the findings are shocking," said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.
The fact that previous administrations allowed the United States to become reliant on foreign nations, including our competitors and adversaries, for minerals that are so strategically important to our security and economy is deeply troubling. As both a former military commander and geologist, I know the very real national security risk of relying on foreign nations for what the military needs to keep our soldiers and our homeland safe."
(No wonder the Left hates the guy! He wants to break the monopoly China holds over us)
pdf link to above for ease of reading. (862 pages of very dry, but informative, reading)
Americas has many of them, we just aren't allowed to mine them for various "reasons".
...yet we're dependent in America on other nations for our supply.
The US is the only industrialized country that needs almost -nothing- from the rest of the world: oil, gas, coal, iron ore, gold, silver, copper, food, etc., we have in abundance if FedZilla just gets out of the way.
“It will take many years if the US wants to rebuild its rare-earth industry and increase its domestic supply to reduce its dependence on China’s minerals.”
Do it and you become OPEC...
We should export the enviro-kooks to China.
“Just drill baby” - Palin !!!
I wonder what a full BOYCOTT of everything out of China would do to the ChiComs ? Derail their Economy Much ??? (Never forget though that they can ALWAYS ‘rule by the gun’ when they need to)
Same tactic to threaten them with WHEN they threaten to dump the Treasury Bonds.
Earth First! We’ll mine the rest of the planets later!
“That’s according to a couple of Globaltimes editorials.” US faces squeeze on rare earths,” says one editorial. “US need for rare earths an ace on Beijing’s hand,” goes another.”
Global Times is the Chinese Communist Party’s main English propaganda mouthpiece.
I could be wrong here but before B Clinton closed the US rare earth mines as a favor to his Indonesian buddies, the US mines were the largest and most productive in the world.
Forget the coal and just process the huge stocks of coal ash we have. Very high concentrations of rare earths rivaling the best ore deposits. We have a lot of it. It is in sludge ready to pump and process. 1.5 billion tons of coal ash with an additional 129 million tons of coal ash every year. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/pu-wca101117.php
I agree with you. The problem with the shortsightedness stems, I believe, from a warped group-think that seems to infiltrate all bureaucrats.
the US has 1.4M metric tons of RE reserves, getting the permits to mine it is the problem... the democrat silverfish or some such is on the reserve don't you know
I’d wager that President Trump looked at this particular angle before the first tariff was thrown...
will only hurt for the short term. the only reason the stuff is not mined here is regulations ….
Trump said he wanted to remove regulations.
I seem to remember in my ancient mind that the mine in california was bought by the chinese and then closed by the chinese.
I certainly do... they are herding goats on top of TRILLIONS of dollars worth of metals.
Largely from the US (Nevada). Also some in France and Russia. China drove EVERYONE out of business with low pricing. Now, we're all very dependent.
Yes.. there are massive supplies in various places around the world, but... it will take a LONG TIME to develop them. In the meantime, prices for many things we all use daily (like, cell phones) will rise sharply.
When China restricted exports of rare earth minerals a decade ago, the price of Cerium (a key ingredient in many catalysts my company makes) spike from $4/lb to $120/lb in just a few WEEKS. It caused a major disruption in our business.
For a time, we were looking for ANY work-around. We even joked about smuggling Cerium in Yak caravans over the Himalayas! Once we figured out a method, we made a LOT of money. Such disruptions are tremendous opportunities for agile companies.
Um... yea... but, it's buried under Bazillions of gallons of seawater. Mining such minerals is a DIRTY, nasty, very NON-environmentally friendly process.. (Which, is why only the Chinese, who care so little about any of that, mine it.
That stuff is going to STAY at the bottom of the ocean.
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