1w ago

China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S., cutting off critical materials for tech, autos, aerospace, and defense

Exports of rare earths now require special licenses, but Beijing has yet to fully establish a system for issuing them, the New York Times reported.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250414191508/https://fortune.com/2025/04/14/china-rare-earth-exports-halt-trump-trade-war-tariff-retaliation/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Technology @lemmy.world

floofloof @lemmy.ca

1w ago

China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S., cutting off critical materials for tech, autos, aerospace, and defense

fortune.com /2025/04/14/china-rare-earth-exports-halt-trump-trade-war-tariff-retaliation/

World News @lemmy.world

NinjaZ @infosec.pub

1w ago

China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S., cutting off critical materials for tech, autos, aerospace, and defense

fortune.com /2025/04/14/china-rare-earth-exports-halt-trump-trade-war-tariff-retaliation/

24 comments

After Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, China retaliated on April 4 with its own duties as well as export controls on several rare earth minerals and magnets made from them.
So far, those export controls have translated to a halt across the board, cutting off the US and other countries, according to the New York Times.
That’s because any exports of the minerals and magnets now require special licenses, but Beijing has yet to fully establish a system for issuing them, the report said.
The last line is also in the post, but I think it's worth stressing that they don't necessarily intend to halt all exports to everywhere. Although I don't like the Chinese having such diplomatic power over core industrial materials.
- The USA found a massive stash of them recently
  
  What do you mean a massive stash? Rare earth isn't banded iron it's not gold or copper from porphyry copper deposits it's very spread out throughout entire continents and that's exactly why it is hard to source, and a part of the reason why china succeeded was their government support eliminated risks of unprofitable business
  The US and Australia ain't doing shit unless they fund and afterwards support them, or create a state owned enterprise
  
  I believe Australia also has a nice stash of them. I do wonder if part of the reason everyone is eyeing Greenland is for similar reasons.
- China has not dropped a single bomb in conflict since 1979 - 46 years ago. They have a nuclear policy of non-first-use. They have a consistent diplomatic policy of respecting everyone's national sovereignty, of resolving conflict through patience and mutual understanding.
  Why don't you like them having such diplomatic power over industrial materials? Because they might use that power to push more nations towards mutual development and away from wasting resources on building more weapons in arms races?
  
  They have a consistent diplomatic policy of respecting everyone's national sovereignty, of resolving conflict through patience and mutual understanding.
  Hahaha
  
  They have a nuclear policy of non-first-use
  Until they decide they don't. See Russia
  
  When all countries can access important raw materials all countries use them to make things and all countries can develop new technologies, when a certain country in this case China would try to monopolise access to these materials the power imbalance can easily shift from working together to achieve common goals to working against each other using violence to make sure they don't end up as the weakest party. Look at how much wars have been waged the last 100 years because of oil.

All part of the Clownfish's master plan! Yay!
- He successfully put The Resource Wars into overdrive

Contrary to their name, rare earth metals are not rare
- They are a finite resource. And China has the biggest reserves.
  https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rare-earth-reserves-by-country
  
  They have the most known reserves. China has subsidized the rare earth market for decades, so capitalism hasn't really bothered with their exploration elsewhere; there has been little incentive beyond "national security".
  There will definitely be considerable reserves in Canada, US, Australia, Africa, probably Russia. The problem is infrastructure, expertise, and the volume of highly-toxic pollution that mining and refining them entail.
  Everything electronic, and dependent on electronics (everything), is about to see a lot of inflation. Yay!

24 comments