Recently, Trump has announced new tariffs to the world, and China is not on the list. It should be noted that after the third round of Sino-US economic and trade negotiations, both sides agreed to continue extending the "truce" on tariffs, but no agreement has been reached yet.

But from the recent statements and actions by the US side, it seems that Trump is planning to take further actions against China. To weaken China's leverage in rare earths, the impetuous Trump has started to speed up his actions, preparing to resort to his "pandemic methods".

On July 31 local time, a source revealed that senior White House officials held a closed-door meeting last week, with multiple rare earth companies participating, which speaks volumes.

In this meeting, the Trump administration proposed a bold plan: drawing lessons from the pandemic, providing a minimum price guarantee for rare earths, quickly increasing the US rare earth production, with the purpose of weakening China's dominant position in this field.

It should be noted that nearly 90% of global rare earth processing capacity is firmly controlled by China. Since Trump took office, especially after experiencing China's countermeasures on rare earths, he has been closely watching rare earths, trying to reduce dependence on China, but so far the progress has not been smooth.

It is not difficult to see that the Trump administration is really losing patience, even considering some unusual methods.

Getting back to the main topic, the one who led the meeting was Trump's right-hand man, namely his trade advisor Navarro, as well as David Copley, who manages supply chain strategy at the National Security Council.

Navarro also admitted to the media about the meeting, saying that the US government needs to "accelerate action at Trump speed" to address the shortcomings in key mineral industries. But when asked if the minimum price guarantee was mentioned at the meeting, he didn't respond.

According to Navarro's statement, their goal is to build a complete rare earth supply chain from mines to end products, and the participating rare earth companies can play a big role in this process.

Interestingly, sources said that some companies wanted Navarro to support a ban on the export of devices containing rare earth magnets, to promote the domestic recycling industry.

But Navarro said: This will be pushed only when the US rare earth industry becomes more mature, to avoid doing so now, which might give China an advantage in the trade dispute too early.

Additionally, he made a tough statement: All policy options are under consideration by Trump. Wait and see.

However, looking back at Trump's push during the pandemic for the development of the coronavirus vaccine, although the vaccine was successfully developed within a year, subsequent problems such as delayed delivery, supply shortages, and logistical chaos caused serious inefficiencies in vaccination.

Now, Trump is applying this model to the rare earth industry, which is quite concerning.

Additionally, besides the price guarantee, Navarro and Copley also set requirements for the participating companies to invest existing government funding into rare earth production.

They then proceeded to "paint a big picture" for the companies, emphasizing that the Pentagon is the largest shareholder of the largest rare earth producer in the US, and that the practice of setting a rare earth pricing mechanism is not an exception.

In fact, since China introduced new regulations on rare earth controls, countries such as the United States, Australia, and India, as well as many Western companies, have been investing heavily in the critical mineral sector, aiming to "end" China's dominance, all eyeing closely.

It is not hard to see that Trump is busy clearing the stage globally, and after dealing with other countries, he may soon focus his efforts on China. However, a problem that cannot be avoided remains: China's rare earth card has become a "tightening ring" that keeps the US awake at night.

If China strengthens its measures to restrict rare earth exports to the US, many American companies would have to stop working, and this pain makes the Trump administration aware that without breaking this dependence, it will have less confidence in dealing with China.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7533488425454895631/

Statement: The article represents the views of the author, and you are welcome to express your opinion by clicking the 【top/down】 buttons below.