China Just Turned Off U.S. Supplies Of Minerals Critical For Defense & Cleantech
China Just Turned Off U.S. Supplies Of Minerals Critical For Defense & Cleantech - CleanTechnica
All this instability has me direly worried about what will happen if China invades Taiwan. Like, if we think it's bad now, an invasion of Taiwan would grind our systems to a halt.
It will be interesting to see if Canada allies with China
Much like how Vietnam was allied with the US because of the giant military on their doorstep
Greenland, Ukraine, Canada: all of Trump's actions make sense if you consider that he wants to secure rare earth minerals for... someone
Bet the US is suddenly going to buy these minerals out of Russia. Bet one of Trump's children or in-laws indirectly owns a exporting company in Russia.
"But look at this picture of Hunter Biden's magnum dong. I mean, just look at it. Its so...magnum." - Margarine BattleToad Greene.
Pikachu O face
If China stops exporting these to the US that should influence the trade deficit in the way Trump is looking for, right? Isn’t that what this was supposed to do according to Trump? So he should be happy about this, right? Because it’ll bring the manufacturing of the minerals home? /s
I mean.. who knows what he wants, maybe he wants to crash the economy.
Haven't you heard? China are already on the phone with Trump saying they are going to move the production of terbium to the US. Basically they'll use these very big drills to mine Chinese minerals right from Wyoming.
This will only encourage him to go after Greenland even harder. He thinks they are the solution to having "rare earth."
Without China as a supplier, and thinking Greenland is the solution, it will justify an armed attack on Greenland in his empty cranium.
The base we maintain in Greenland has about 150 people. My prediction is that he will start sending troops to the base to build up a force, and start intimidating Greenland/Denmark.
The era of Geoeconomics has begun.
Human nature is geoeconomical ):
Also, China is going to give the finger to US companies and Trump and make even more counterfeit stuff.
Companies complaining about Chinese IP ain't seen nothing, yet.
Wasn't respecting US patents also one of the parts of the US-Canada agreement as well which they now technically don't have to do anymore, as not having tariffs was one of the requirements?
Everyone is pretty much selling every stock right now, but sell NYSE: DIS ?
Delicious. Simply delicious. Trump didnt just pick up the gun, load the gun, aim the gun at his foot, fire the gun, claim it would make him run better and fall over. He then got back up and did it all again with the other foot still claiming it would make him run better.
It takes a truly special kind of stupid to be at Trumps level.
We need to change this rhetoric. Trump isn't going to be hurt by this. It's more apt that he's taking a machine gun to all of our feet. He hasn't been held accountable for anything he's made us suffer through.
Trump isn't stupid, at least not that stupid. Your analogy would work better if instead of shooting his own foot he's shooting Uncle Sam's foot. You act confused because you think he works for Uncle Sam. He does not. He's a Russian asset: his job is to make sure Uncle Sam never walks again, while pretending he's not doing it on purpose so he can keep doing it.
When you look at it that way, all his actions make perfect sense. He works for Putin and he's doing a good job. Until people realize this he'll keep sabotaging the US.
See, it was plausible until the price of oil started falling. Oil is one of the few things propping up Russia's economy. If oil keeps falling, Russia is even more screwed than it is now.
It would appear that he's just a brat who's never been told no in his life, grown so far as to be going senile. It's all ego. Every single stupid thing he does is because he thinks he's right. He is the literal embodiment of the dunning-krueger effect, fed by a bubble of yes-men hoping for crumbs from the table.
I think he might actually be that stupid tho
I don't think he works for Putin (or well, who knows), but I think he admires fascism and fascists put ideology above economy, so that tracks.
He can be both: working for Putin and a complete moron.
You don’t threaten to sue the school you attended if your grades are released unless you know they are nothing to be proud of. Also, that professor or teacher that said Trump was the dumbest student he had to teach in all his years.
Good point. He bankrupted several of his casinos as practice, and now he is bankrupting the US.
Putin continues to finance trump and has bailed him out of bankruptcy in the past. None of this is foot shooting, its all trashing the US from top to bottom as Putin planned. Every day Putin wins and people scratch their heads wondering why trump would do such stupid things.
It is all building to him putting the gun to his head with the promise it will make him stronger than ever. He will retaliate to these retaliations because it is all he understands. All his life he has just ignored or run head first at problems planning to solve them in the moment with his superior mind and it has never worked, and he never learns. More than that he never sees it as failed, and that is what so much of the US voted for and the world saw it.
Genuinely never thought I'd join the war on China on the side of China.
It still explains why this is happening. You can't rely on Cina to build your military systems if they are for a war on China.
It's increadible that the comments are about Trump's stupidity and not about the consequences of that war.
But didn't Trump tell them not to retaliate? I'm pretty sure Trump told them not to retaliate. I don't understand.
Did Xi jinping say thank you or xia-xia ni ??
I think he said "Oh bother."
He still has cards to play to make himself heard. He hasn't insulted anyone's attire yet.
Really. Maybe they were unclear. About the not retaliating.
He's got the punch buggy, no punch back rules.
I think we're in stage 2 now: find out
Part of me hopes that other countries that have also had some populist fascist groups making waves recently would see how bad we've fucked up and not go down the same path. But we sure as hell didn't seem to learn anything from Brexit about isolationism
Canada has an election coming up. It looked like a sure thing that the right wing party would win, now things are swinging in favour of the left wing because we're afraid of Trump
But we sure as hell didn't seem to learn anything from Brexit about isolationism
"Oh that could never happen here!"
This is the FO part of the American Exceptionalism FA.
How badly do you need to fuck up so that China is the one we're rooting for? JFC.
That’s not a problem I’ll just go ask one of my historical trade partnohnoholyfuckwhatdidijustdo.
Never fight a trade war on two fronts against every country simultaneously.
In the wise words of Londo Mollari
Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.
he is repeating history, starting trade wars to trigger world war.
The MIC already worked a solution since last time China restricted exports; both Cali and Australia would pick up production.
The problem with rare earth isn't that it's rare, it's that they only exist in low concentrations, and the total lack of labor and environmental laws in China means that there is no room for external competitors to compete on price... Our modern neoliberal governments refuse to do anything that does not enrich or empower the oligarchy; not even for "national security".
Unfortunately, this means Australia might have just jumped to the top of the nazi parties annexation list.
The "cheap Chinese labor and lax laws" thing is not exactly the issue, at least not these days. The thing is that Chinese industry has spent decades working out how to refine these minerals, and they're the only ones who are now able to do it at scale. So other countries that extract and process rare earths (which as noted aren't actually that rare) often ship semi-processed ore to China for final processing.
Sure, other countries can replicate these capabilities if they're willing to put in the effort. It's like China's challenge with EUV lithography, but in reverse. It will take significant time. Also, building up a rare earths processing industry probably involves not just spending capital, but also major environmental risks while you're doing your trials.
Yup, it is processing of the ores that china is good at. Rare earth is not that rare.
You know who has a lot of these minerals? Greenland.
If you've been to Greenland it you'll realize how inaccessible these mineral deposits are. And with no roads connecting towns it becomes a logistical nightmare. Oh and the place is covered in thick ice and snow for 10 months of the year. There have been mining companies dying there for the last 50 years, 1. Because of legislation and 2 because it's virtually impossible to mine.
I've seen jokes(?) that they're aiming high, as in, aiming for high global temperatures to handle the ice. Stupidity wouldn't describe it, it'd be insanity... But isn't that what this administration is all about?
Oh. That's why China was fighting so hard to buy the Tanbreez site during the last administration and why the US had to exert soft power on 4 different countries to buy it out from under them.
The U.S. has a surprising amount of known rare earth deposits but the deposits aren’t really being explored extensively, much less mined because of economic reasons. The U.S. has the 4th largest lithium deposits, for example, but to mine it wouldn’t be competitive.
A mean, a year ago, I would have said, it’s just cheaper to buy them on global markets than mine them in California. But we’ll see how broke these tariffs make us. We might all have lithium lung and be paid in company scrip again in 15 years.
Those minerals don't just jump up from the ground even if Trump parks his fat orange ass there.
Like Trump likes to say so much: FAFO.
Multiple can play that game.
This is bad for Canada. US might try to take ours - by force.
Doesn't the US have plenty of these materials, it's just too expensive to mine it because of environmental protection legislation, wages, energy costs, missing infrastructure for it and so on? This wouldn't change in Canada/Greenland.
It would... if the annexed territories became a special economic zone where, magically, slavery was made completely legal.
For an example what might be yet to come, you could take a look at the horrifying history of the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal which happened in a similarly hostile environment.
Canada and Greenland should also institute export licensing rules on critical minerals too
I’m truly afraid that might be one of their hopes.
Mines in Canada are privately owned. I’d be down for nationalizing them. To protect them.
Aren't you already seen as the 51st state?
Edit: I don't mean to defend that at all. I'm just saying that Canada is already in Trump's crosshairs. This doesn't fundamentally change the situation.
I’ve been seen as a giant baby-snatching predator by loopy crows defending their nest. That doesn’t mean I am one.
At this point, most of the world is getting past thinking what Trump and his cronies see them as, as it’s likely to change dramatically from hour to hour.
But we might get fed up with the noisy crow.
Most Americans think that’s fucking stupid
It's cool, trump is getting his so who cares about literally anything else?
/s
It’s not a big deal. Rare earth minerals aren’t that rare.
It’s the refining of rare earth minerals which is energy intensive and causes a great deal of pollution.
It was nice that China was destroying their own environment and spending the capital to build power plants. Now we will have to invest the capital to do it ourselves.
they are not rare, but they are not concentrated enough to make mining worthwhile. that will change when the price starts approaching infinity, but it takes years to ramp up production. and while you are sifting through huge volumes of stone and rock for meager results, the rest of the world runs in circles around you.