2d ago

Why China curbing rare earth exports is a huge blow to the US

www.bbc.com

Summary

China has now imposed export controls on a range of critical rare earth minerals and magnets, dealing a major blow to the US.

"Rare earths" are a group of 17 chemically similar elements that are crucial to the manufacture of many high-tech products. Everything you can switch on or off likely runs on rare earths.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that China accounts for about 61% of rare earth production and 92% of their processing.

A US Geological report notes that between 2020 and 2023, the US relied on China for 70% of its imports of all rare earth compounds and metals.

24 comments

Trump fucked around, now America gets to find out
America was never a leader, is was always a bully
Now the world had had enough and is pushing back. The facade is slipping and America is shown to be the house of cards it always was
- Americans fucked around. We took our democracy for granted. We were too polite to challenge the bigots in our lives. We were too afraid of being called elitist or communist or soft, so we sat on the sidelines with furrowed brows and clutched pearls while shitty people steamrolled our freedoms to pave the road to their own successes.
  We're all to blame. The Conservative shitbags, the opportunistic centrists, the ineffectual progressives, and the shiftless appliticals who never bothered to try. Trump didn't happen to America. Trump is the inexorable conclusion of America.
  
  It was very carefully and insidiously taken from you
  I agree that it was inevitable though. It was a county founded on the idea of fucking people over to get ahead
  Maybe there's hope for the future. I sure hope that there is
- It used to be a bully you could reason and work with, and that at least understood give and take. Now it's just a drunk bully, starting fights for whatever.
  
  It's a toddler
  Just look at the tantrums, let alone the shitting itself...
- The world gets to find out. None of this affects only the USA or China. They‘re both freaking out right now.
- It was stolen from the indigenous population
  It only achieved independence because the French hated the English
  It has interfered with the autonomy of so many countries
  The US sat out of the second world war until the tail end things, because there were quite a few people who thought that Hitler was actually pretty cool (so history is repeating)
  Since then there has been a series of wars waged purely to try to show other competing powers that 'Murica punches hard
  I think it's hilarious that you call me "tough guy", as though I value people thinking that I'm a hard cunt or something
  That's a yank thing.
  I don't have to worry about my safety, because I don't live in a country where violence is ever-present due to everyone being afraid of everyone else

Not doing this would require not being an idiot, which is simply too much to ask of the USA lately.

That's the reason they want Greenland, and are pro climate change
https://www.eurare.org/countries/greenland.html
https://grist.org/energy/greenland-rare-earths-mining-geopolitics-china-us/
- You mean by productively increasing global temperature so that the permafrost layer drops? At the cost of equatorial land combusting, drying out lakes?(Like Chad, Nevada) Followed by a ecological collapse of main food sources. Lowering demand for rare metal products. Wow simply wow.
  What's the end game here, 1000 satellites to facilitate one person?
  
  “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
  
  They think farmland in higher latitudes will be more productive.
  Now you can think about why they want Canada so badly.
  
  You think they care about anyone but themselves?

24 comments