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

The Economist interviews President Trump and spots the keyword *reciprocity* from trade to taxation.

Amy Hamilton

2017-07-01 08:40:00 Saturday ET

The Economist interviews President Trump and spots the keyword *reciprocity* from trade to taxation.

The Economist interviews President Donald Trump and spots the keyword *reciprocity* in many aspects of Trumponomics from trade and taxation to infrastructur

+See More

Product market competition and online ecommerce help constrain money supply growth with low inflation.

Peter Prince

2019-09-25 15:33:00 Wednesday ET

Product market competition and online ecommerce help constrain money supply growth with low inflation.

Product market competition and online e-commerce help constrain money supply growth with low inflation. Key e-commerce retailers such as Amazon, Alibaba, an

+See More

U.S. automobile and real estate sales decline despite higher consumer confidence and low unemployment as of October 2018.

Fiona Sydney

2018-10-27 09:34:00 Saturday ET

U.S. automobile and real estate sales decline despite higher consumer confidence and low unemployment as of October 2018.

U.S. automobile and real estate sales decline despite higher consumer confidence and low unemployment as of October 2018. This slowdown arises from the curr

+See More

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

Charlene Vos

2018-07-21 13:35:00 Saturday ET

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which effectively broadens the jurisdiction of

+See More

Federal Reserve's QE exit strategy makes sense ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's stepdown in 2018.

Chanel Holden

2017-03-27 06:33:00 Monday ET

Federal Reserve's QE exit strategy makes sense ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's stepdown in 2018.

Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius says the Federal Reserve's QE exit strategy makes sense ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's stepdown in 2018

+See More

Lean enterprises often try to incubate disruptive innovations with iterative continuous improvements and inventions over time.

Joseph Corr

2020-06-03 09:31:00 Wednesday ET

Lean enterprises often try to incubate disruptive innovations with iterative continuous improvements and inventions over time.

Lean enterprises often try to incubate disruptive innovations with iterative continuous improvements and inventions over time. Trevor Owens and Obie Fern

+See More