It’s hard to watch the US-China conflict over rare earth minerals as anything other than shadow boxing. The implications of the fight are very real. China’s ringfencing of critical minerals and its export controls on the sector, which are needed for everything from semiconductors and electric vehicles to smartphones and fighter jets, is a big hit to the US. But the shock both sides profess to have about the situation is pure theatre.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said last week that China’s leveraging of export controls on the minerals was the result of “rogue” trade actions in advance of a planned Trump-Xi summit, and that Beijing “couldn’t be trusted”.
Perhaps, but the reality that China had this card to play is down to the fact that the US has, for the past 30 years, allowed it to slowly but surely take over the entire industry.