Rare land elements are a major weapon in the trade war between the United States of China

IIn response to the escalating Donald Trump tariffs, China partially retaliated by placing it Export restrictions On a large number of rare ground elements. These strong materials are crucial for the United States, as they support the creation of weapons, computer chips and electric cars. China Produce The majority of these rare ground materials – experts say the United States is years away from building its supply chain.

With the rise of the American trade war – China, the rare land is among the most important pieces of China. There are many reasons why China does not want to close us to reach the fully rare land, most notably that the country makes a lot of money from exporting it. But if China decides to strangle its supplies, the effects of ripple may be very painful in many industries, says Layl Tritrin, a decisive metal expert. “The United States does not have the means to create the materials it needs to create the devices it remains,” he says.

Read more: Trump doubles in the trade war, threatens China with more definitions

The importance of the rare land

The rare Earth’s importance has increased only over the years, due to the world’s dependence on strong computers and its search for cleaner energy. For example, Dysprosium and Terbium were found in smartphones. Vibration units. Newmium works on electric car engines. Tungsten, which is a very difficult metal, is used in ammunition, semiconductor chips, and alloys in jet engines and deep drilling excavations.

Almost all of these materials are extracted and processed by China, which has spent contracts to build a strong infrastructure to do so. As a result, many companies, including Tesla and Apple, are the source of its rare land from China. Recently, China has not hesitated to use this domination as a tool for geopolitical bargaining. In 2010, China Rare land exports were stopped To Japan amid the increasing tensions. Over the past two years, Beijing has imposed restrictions on other critical minerals, such as gallium, germanium and graphite.

“It is completely predictable now as soon as the United States pulls something – whether it is an export control over a specific or tariff technology – this is the weapon chosen in China,” he says. Fabian VillaloposRand engineer. “It is very important that the rare heavy land separating the rare light land is the place where China has dominance, and therefore there is a weakness in the supply chain.”

The White House indicated its understanding of the fragility of the current ecosystem when it is Exempt Critical minerals of the definition system this month. But this did not prevent China from Issuing export controls On seven types of rare ground elements, to all countries, on Friday. The decision is not a ban, but it gives Beijing’s supervision and control of access to rare ground elements. China He said Export controls will not affect the rare land supply chain.

Decally, China has deleted many The most exotic Rare ground elements, including niudmium and praseodymium. However, the controls show that China is ready to use these materials as a bargaining chickenpox and can climb their restrictions if tensions increase. “Think about this opening snapshot across the arc,” says Titrin. The elements listed also include those in the fine chips used in artificial intelligence – another indication of the continuous AI Arm race between the two countries.

Villalobos says that in the short term, there is likely to have a slowdown in rare land exports as companies apply for licenses to adhere to export control items. “You may see a temporary decline in exports, and then intensify more companies that their licenses get,” he says.

But Villalopos says that the greatest threat to American companies can come after that, as soon as China begins collecting detailed information about the rare land market – which then gives China the ability to impose harmful sanctions on specific companies. This can include American defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, which needs a rare land for components in missile systems and combat aircraft. “This is the danger: the more information you can collect from the exporters, the more you can target the specified companies that do not want to reach the rare land.”

United States capacity

Many experts have long called on the United States to dismantle itself from this dependence. Some believe that the solution is to get rid of the rare land the moon. Other entrepreneurs started projects in building mines and processing facilities throughout America. Trump’s tariff, then, can stimulate these types of transformations; To force American companies to build the supply chain flexibility. “Perhaps the ball will be transferred to investments, which is one of the large barriers in front of the diversification of critical metal supply chains,” says Villalopos.

But the rare land and other minerals are very heavy Treen says that treatment – the United States does not have the infrastructure to quickly expand these efforts. A number of graduates of US Mining Engineering programs steadily Decline During the past few decades, which may lead to lack of experience. Trytten says there is a risk of rushing in new mining projects to production. He says: “The history of our industry in mineral space is that when we try to do things quickly, we tend to do it badly,” he says.

Because of these factors, Trytten claims that even if a new wave of mining projects is now began, its fruits will not be given even a long period of Trump’s White House. “Call her from eight to 10 years before you have a great new capacity for many of these raw materials,” says Tritin. “Can he overcome the storm for a long time?”

Other experts say different parts of the Trump tariff make it difficult for them to expand the infrastructure by the state. On the rare land exchange PodcastBusinessman Daniel O’Connor He said These materials such as steel and aluminum are decisive towards mining and processing. “Let’s not do the definitions of the things we need to build our infrastructure,” he said.