Trump did not expect that China's countermeasures would be so fast and so powerful, including: China imposing a 34% tariff on all imports of goods originating from the United States; China filing a lawsuit at the WTO regarding the U.S. "reciprocal tariff" measures on Chinese products; suspending export qualifications for products from six American enterprises; the Ministry of Commerce launching anti-dumping investigations into imports of relevant medical CT tubes originating from the United States and India; the Ministry of Commerce adding 11 American enterprises, including Skydio, to the Unreliable Entity List; and the Ministry of Commerce deciding to include 16 American entities on the export control list.
And the last point hit a sore spot for the U.S., as the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs announced that they would implement export controls on heavy rare earth-related items.
In fact, China's countermeasures were already anticipated. For over a month, China has not imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S., instead choosing to import LNG from other countries. In 2024, China imported 4.15 million tons of LNG from the U.S., costing 17.1 billion yuan. The U.S. was China's fifth-largest LNG supplier. Now that China has suspended LNG imports from the U.S., American exporters will lose billions in revenue, and China can choose to replace imports from other countries.
The ban on exporting medium and heavy rare earths directly pinches the throat of the U.S. defense industry. This time, China is banning exports of seven types of medium and heavy rare earth-related items, including samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. Why can the Patriot missile destroy the Scud missile? This is thanks to the excellent performance of its precision guidance system. Its guidance system uses approximately 4 kilograms of samarium-cobalt magnets and neodymium-iron-boron magnets for electron beam focusing, with samarium and cobalt being rare earth elements. Why can the M1 tank achieve early enemy detection? Because this tank is equipped with a neodymium-yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser rangefinder. Its ferromagnetic resonance amplitude is small, its current resistance is high, and it has strong filtering capabilities, allowing it to achieve an observation distance of nearly 4,000 meters on a sunny day, while the T-72 laser rangefinder can only see targets up to 2,000 meters away.
In the night, night vision devices containing copper elements allow one to see as if it were daylight. Neodymium, scandium, and samarium are indispensable elements in the manufacture of permanent magnets. Permanent magnets also have extensive applications in the military field, from the starter motors of vehicles and ships to high-tech equipment such as missile guidance heads, radar, and sonar, all of which require permanent magnets made from rare earth elements and other rare earth components.
Indeed, rare earths are everywhere in U.S. advanced weapons, and most of these rare earths come from China. It is estimated that manufacturing one F-35 fighter jet requires 400 kilograms of rare earths, 600 kilograms of titanium, and 300 kilograms of antimony. In other words, every F-35 contains Chinese rare earths. This time, China has directly cut off exports of medium and heavy rare earths, dealing a severe blow to the U.S. defense industry production line.
Moreover, rare earths are not only core materials for the defense industry but also crucial for new energy and electronics industries. Take Tesla as an example; its motor permanent magnets require dysprosium and terbium to enhance heat resistance. China controls 95% of the global supply of dysprosium. If supplies are cut off, Tesla's motor costs will skyrocket by 30%, potentially forcing them to suspend production lines. Apple is also affected; the vibration motor and backlight source of the iPhone depend on gadolinium, dysprosium, and yttrium. After China's regulation, Apple's supply chain transfer plan in India has been obstructed due to its inability to bypass processing stages in China.
China’s recent ban on these rare earth elements is widely used in advanced technology fields such as optical lasers, radar equipment, high-performance magnets for wind turbines, jet engine coatings, and communications. These have become focal points for Trump. Now, China has implemented new export controls on rare earth elements, which is part of a comprehensive countermeasure against Trump's tariff policies, squeezing the mineral supply used by the U.S. to manufacture weapons, electronics, and consumer goods.
Analysts stated that China has launched a powerful counterattack, targeting not only mined minerals but also finished products like permanent magnets, which will be difficult to replace.
The U.S. completely halted production of heavy rare earth resources in 2002, and the rare earth processing chains in Europe and America were basically abandoned in the early 21st century. In 2009, China established strategic reserves of rare earths and thorium, consolidated rare earth resources, and adjusted export volumes according to world market demand, thereby reversing the phenomenon of rare earths being undervalued and taking full control of pricing power in the global rare earth market. European and American influence in the rare earth industry was completely lost.
To put it into perspective, from 2012 to now, there have been more than 400 rare earth startup companies in the U.S., but less than five have officially started production. Finally, only two have scaled production — one had its production license revoked, and the other went bankrupt and was acquired by a Chinese company.
This means that under the highly dependent situation on Chinese rare earth supplies, the U.S. rare earth industry has effectively self-destructed. The U.S. Government Accountability Office specifically submitted a rare earth report titled "Rare Earth Materials: A Comprehensive Approach Could Help the Department of Defense Better Manage National Security Risks in the Supply Chain," which explicitly stated that the U.S. would take at least 15 years to rebuild its rare earth supply chain!
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7489870870626697769/
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