Last week, China’s Ministry of Commerce published a document that went by the name of “announcement No. 62 of 2025”.
But this wasn’t just any bureaucratic missive. It has rocked the fragile tariffs truce with the US.
The announcement detailed sweeping new curbs on its rare earth exports, in a move that tightens Beijing’s grip on the global supply of the critical minerals - and reminded Donald Trump just how much leverage China holds in the trade war.
China has a near-monopoly in the processing of rare earths - crucial for the production of everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
PSA: rare earth’s aren’t rare. It’s the separation from each other and the bulk of earth that makes it cumbersome. It’s basically processing capacity that China has today.
Invest in local processing plants.
Why? So they can charge us more than China for the same product?
If we want to compete, we have to actually compete. That means accepting less profit.
So that capability and competency is domestic. The competitive edge is in being independent.
It would also be very cheap if local production were held to the same environmental and labour standards as it is there.
If we are fine with others shouldering the environmental and labour burdens for our cheap products, we should be fine with doing it ourselves.
If we are not, we should not be buying products that don’t adhere to our standards.
then the entire western economy would collapse.
Indeed. That’s also very telling. The entire Western market is built on offloading undesirable waste, labour practices to ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
It’s always telling how you useful idiots keep excusing the businessmen taking you for a ride.
Why can’t you argue in favor of them making less profit, all else the same?
It’s because you’re a useful idiot.
As a known .ml hater, nah man — they’re right. What you’re suggesting is extremely hypocritical. Do you realize how much better the U.S.’ current circumstances would be if instead of offshoring all of our factories we 1) held them to stronger environmental safety standards 2) didn’t fucking close them. Actually, the world would likely be much better off.
We’re in this mess because a shitload of people have willfully ignored the real cost of having their supermarket packed with meat 100% of the time, no exceptions. The real cost, 17.42 megatonnes of Co2 in 2022, from iPhone production alone. The real cost of their freedoms being paid for in blood and sweat from Chinese/Indian and 3rd world sweatshops.
So, yes, if we’re unwilling to shoulder environmental and labour burdens for our products — we should not have those products.
I’m not sure if you’ve been in the materials industry for long, but the margins aren’t all that large there, and much of it is used to mitigate risk in the heavily fluctuating market.
Yes they will charge you more, because there’s toxic waste involved and it can be expensive to handle in an environmentally friendly way. It’s cheaper to refine rare earths by just dumping the toxic waste on the ground, which is what China does and it’s how they cornered the market.
This is one of the cases where tariffs are good. Produce the rare earths the right way (even if it costs more) and slap tariffs on products that are produced in ways that damages the environment (as China does).
Yeah, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I guess you just watched an American influencer and assumed everything he told you was correct.
Try to understand that those people are for entertainment only. They won’t educate you on anything and make money off of whipping you up into a frenzy.
Actually, I got the information about China’s handling of toxic waste from processing rare earths from Australian news (ABC).
Where do you get your information from? Some influencer on TikTok? Those people are for entertainment only and consider who’s choosing which content you see.
China spent the last 2 decades investing in infrastructure, energy, heavy industry and manufacturing while we were… doing what exactly? Selling smartphone apps to each other, pumping crypto, gig economy and letting private equity gut our services?
You are correct but also are missing something. As far as tech services go, the US is (but rapidly decline as due to Trump) a titan. But like I said, right now and especially in the last 10 years they have been going through some extremely serious enshitification of the internet, internet services, and a plethora of other stuff. As far as I am concerned the past 10 years have been extremely static in a lot of development.
Where my holodecks at?
No it just the ever growing feeling of sameness and nothing new coming up.
As a young kid in the late 80s and early 90s I saw shit just go from big to bigger in only a few years. Jokes about computers becoming obsolete the moment they are shipped were everywhere. Graphics and computing power exploded in the 90s and all the way until the 2010s and… things didn’t seem to be that much different. A computer I would have had in 2000 would be aching for a replacement in 2005, and the same from 2005 to 2010 and so on. But now I feel like a computer I would have had from 2015 or 2018 would not be too far behind today.
Maybe things got more efficient. But it just seemed like things haven’t changed that much. I mean they did. Cloud computing has gotten huge, but in terms of users and usability things haven’t budged.
Yes, resource availability isn’t the issue, and “just invest more” has some massive hurdles:
All these mean any processing outside of China is going to be incredibly expensive and competitively unprofitable. It’s not impossible to do, and removing dependence from China is probably worth it, but it’s going to take a lot of capital and time to achieve and sustain.
China itself is mining rare earths abroad such as in Myanmar and in Indonesia …
We urgently needed transparent supply chains …
How many years does it take to get a processing plant up and running? Longer than Donald has to live, I’ll bet.
Probably, considering the average lifespan of a dementia patient. However, processing capacity could be built quickly* if it were a priority. It’s just that the private sector isn’t capable of creating or funding that priority on its own, so a competent government is required.
*years rather than decades
Well, since they’re disappearing all of the laborers…
I guess the good news is that he only has 2 years or less left?
Can’t we just do tariffs that cripple our already dwindling industrial capacity and give tax cuts to rich people who don’t need them?
Sure, but like, they sound rare. It’s right in the name. That’s why dumbass Trumpo behaves like China is hoarding rare jewels from him and cries for Mommy to do something.
The reality is that China is about the only country willing to process the rare earth minerals because of how incredibly toxic it is to the local populace. Many countries could choose to invest in processing plants but are unwilling to subject their citizens to the cancers they invariably cause.
Maybe that’s too generous. The wealthy don’t want them around, and it’s bad business to get your labor force unable to work.
I don’t know if environmental protection is high on trump’s list, along with the welfare of ‘illegal migrants’.
Do you want environmental degradation and pollution with processing rare earths? Because that’s the main reason why many countries avoid doing it because it will be met with opposition from their electorates.
That’s only because we want cheap rare earths. If we wanted rare earth’s without the environmental fallout, it would be expensive even if done in China. We’re simply offloading our environmental waste to others.