The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war.

Dan Rochefort

2019-06-13 10:26:00 Thu ET

The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war. In recent times, President Xi visits a Jiangxi hardware factory that spins rare earth elements into permanent magnets in iPhones, electric cars, wind turbines, and military missiles. China monopolizes 80% of the strenuous extraction of 17 vital rare-earth elements for ubiquitous applications from consumer electronic technology to military defense. Although the raw ores are as common as copper and lead, rare-earth ores oxidize quickly and their extraction can cause severe pollution. With its low labor costs and lax environmental regulations, China has become the dominant force in the rare-earth market since the 1980s. With almost half of global rare-earth deposits, China produces 120,000 metric tons of rare-earth per annum, or about 80% of the global supply. Australia is the second largest supplier of only 20,000 metric tons of rare-earth per year.

The Chinese Xi administration has a strategic incentive to reduce the quota of rare-earth elements for better environmental protection. The next quota reset is due in June 2019, and this reset can indicate whether China intends to leverage its rare-earth quasi-monopoly to counteract the Trump tariff tactic.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Ramit Sethi suggests that it is important to invest in long-term gains instead of paying attention to daily dips and trends.

John Fourier

2018-10-30 10:41:00 Tuesday ET

Ramit Sethi suggests that it is important to invest in long-term gains instead of paying attention to daily dips and trends.

Personal finance author Ramit Sethi suggests that it is important to invest in long-term gains instead of paying attention to daily dips and trends. It

+See More

Federal Reserve confirms that all of the 34 major banks pass their annual CCAR macro stress tests.

Apple Boston

2017-05-31 06:36:00 Wednesday ET

Federal Reserve confirms that all of the 34 major banks pass their annual CCAR macro stress tests.

The Federal Reserve rubber-stamps the positive conclusion that all of the 34 major banks pass their annual CCAR macro stress tests for the first time since

+See More

Larry Summers critiques that the Trump tax holiday for U.S. multinational corporations may cause inadvertent consequences.

Rose Prince

2017-01-17 12:42:00 Tuesday ET

Larry Summers critiques that the Trump tax holiday for U.S. multinational corporations may cause inadvertent consequences.

Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers critiques that the Trump administration's generous tax holiday for American multinational

+See More

The new Brexit deal can boost British pound appreciation and macroeconomic optimism.

Fiona Sydney

2019-11-13 11:34:00 Wednesday ET

The new Brexit deal can boost British pound appreciation and macroeconomic optimism.

The new Brexit deal can boost British pound appreciation and economic optimism. British prime minister Boris Johnson wins the parliamentary vote on his new

+See More

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin welcomes a weak U.S. dollar amid pervasive fears of an open trade war between America and China.

James Campbell

2018-01-15 07:35:00 Monday ET

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin welcomes a weak U.S. dollar amid pervasive fears of an open trade war between America and China.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin welcomes a weak U.S. dollar amid pervasive fears of an open trade war between America and China. At the World Economic For

+See More

What is our asset management strategy?

Andy Yeh Alpha

2026-02-28 10:29:00 Saturday ET

What is our asset management strategy?

AYA fintech network platform provides proprietary alpha stock signals and personal finance tools for stock market investors. As of March 2026, we have up

+See More