this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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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)
submitted 1 week ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/globalnews@lemmy.zip
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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.

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[–] huppakee@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The USA found a massive stash of them recently

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 3 points 6 days ago

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

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] huppakee@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The thing is, rare earths got their name because they are barely ever found purely on their own, they have to be separated from other metals which is a difficult and expensive proces. If I understand correctly rare earths are basically everywhere but you want to find a site with a high concentration in order to make it financially feasible.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

More importantly, absolutely none of this has anything to do with China's near monopoly on rare earth refinement. Rare earth minerals, even high density regions of them, exist all over the world. Digging them up is easy, but separating the actual minerals from the rest of the soil and rock is really hard. That's the part that China is highly specialized in. No one needs to invade Greenland or fucking whatever to get access to rare earth minerals. The US can dig them up right there at home. What they need is to build out the refinement infrastructure. But they would prefer to outsource the extraction to other countries if they can because it involves strip mining vast swathes of land that could be used for other things.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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?

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 0 points 1 week ago

They have a nuclear policy of non-first-use

Until they decide they don't. See Russia

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago

They have a consistent diplomatic policy of respecting everyone's national sovereignty, of resolving conflict through patience and mutual understanding.

Hahaha

[–] huppakee@lemm.ee -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This framing takes all comparison out of the equation. The reality is that oil was monopolized by the white supremacist patriarchal capitalist North Atlantic Eurocentric empire - the same empire that has been dominating the globe for 500 years; the empire that invented racism as we know it today; the empire that at one point dominated 80% of the world population; the empire that dropped nukes on civilians; the empire that starves entire nations hoping the desperation of the people will cause them to get rid of leaders who are not aligned with the empire; the empire that trained death squads to go and murder entire families in cold blood for decades across multiple continents.

China is withholding critical materials from that empire. It's not just a country holding something back from another country in a political vacuum. We're talking about the actual real historical process of resisting the bloodiest and most brutal empire humanity has ever seen. Yes, it will make the USA seethe and seek to dominate via violence but they already do that every single day. Starving the war machine is exactly what needs to be done right now for the sake of everyone and everything on this planet.

[–] huppakee@lemm.ee -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So then why exactly would it be better if China monopolise rare earth instead of selling it to other countries? Have you even read the article and my comment or are you just spilling your hate for the usa here? I mean be my guest but you're not really countering my point of me disliking China having diplomatic power over rare earths, just that you don't want the US to have it.

I agree with starving the war machine is exactly what needs to be done right now for the sake of everyone and everything on this planet. But this is beyond the scope of the argument, rare earths are mainly used in technology and the technology in weapons is mainly silicon based and China is not a big player in the global semi-conductor trade. They are a big player in the steel business, as far as I know they sell that to everyone as well including the US and Israel. So if it would be about withholding critical materials they would stop selling steel as well.

I don't really feel like you're actually trying to make a point here, except sharing your view of the world. Which is fine by me, but then why not write a post about that or something?

Also by saying stuff like 'the US is the bloodiest and most brutal empire ever seen' you come across (at least to me) as biased and people will not likely want to argue with you. I mean, haven't you had history in high school? There are a lot of massive empires in the history of mankind and the most powerful weren't the nicest per se.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] huppakee@lemm.ee -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

So i guess you agree China shouldn't have diplomatic power over such crucial materials.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think that, of all the governments on the planet, there's no better government on the planet to have this particular power than the government of the PRC.

[–] huppakee@lemm.ee -1 points 1 week ago

Cool, I'm happy for you

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 week ago

China has no more than what every other sovereign nation is entitled to: control over the resources in their territory.

The only requirement for trading with them is to play nice, which the U.S. isn't doing.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

All part of the Clownfish's master plan! Yay!

[–] Makhno@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

He successfully put The Resource Wars into overdrive

[–] 0x01@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Contrary to their name, rare earth metals are not rare

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They are a finite resource. And China has the biggest reserves.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rare-earth-reserves-by-country

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

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!

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

What do you figure the odds are that any newly discovered deposits in the United States will be found inside of national parks, forests, or wildlife reserves?

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

To some small extent sure, but most of it was long explored during previous natural gas and oil booms.