Not a great deal of substance emerged from the Trump/Xi meeting. No surprise there. More interesting, perhaps, was this news item in the Financial Times published ahead of the talks:
Chinese shipments of rare earth magnets to the US fell last month, with supply of the materials crucial to high-end manufacturing expected to be a point of friction in Donald Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping in Washington this week.
China’s shipments of rare earth magnets to the US fell to 512 tonnes in August, 13 per cent lower than the same month a year earlier and 20 per cent lower than July, according to official Chinese customs data released on Sunday.
A coincidence or a less-than-subtle reminder from the Beijing regime of at least one area in which, to quote George Costanza, it has “hand.”
The administration, the FT reports, believes that China has not fully lived up to its promise to resume deliveries of rare earths and other critical minerals to the U.S. in the wake of last year’s trade truce. That also is no surprise. Rare earths are an indispensable element in the manufacture of many high-tech products including a good number in the defense sector. There is little reason to expect that China will be in a rush to supply the U.S. with its needs.
The FT notes a report earlier this month from Capital Economics pointing out that the volume of Chinese shipments of rare earth metals to the U.S. is currently falling at its fastest pace since the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pouring money into the effort to secure alternative sources of supply that circumvent China, and rightly so. In a recent report, the Wall Street Journal noted that the U.S. has struck more than two dozen agreements with other countries for mineral development.
These are all steps in the right direction, but breaking free of this dangerous area of dependence on China is going to take time, and the clock is ticking. . . .