China primes rare earths weapon

As US President Donald Trump turns up the tariff heat on China, Beijing is targeting ever more of the United States’ critical material supply chains.

- Andy Home

Weird and wonderful metals such as antimony, gallium and germanium have already been sucked into the escalating trade war with China restricting exports and banning sales to the United States. Beijing has just raised the mineral threat another level by adding seven rare earths to its dual-use list of restricted exports.

Rare earths are China's ultimate metallic weapon. The country has a vice-like grip on every stage of the global supply chain from mining to processing to manufacturing the permanent mag-nets that power laptops, electric vehicles and fighter jets.

China supplies about 90% of the world’s rare earth magnets, according to the CRU research house. This is a big problem, since the magnets themselves are also now on the export control list.

INVISIBLE METALS

Chances are you've never heard of the rare earths that are now going to be subject to export restrictions, but they have seeped into all aspects of modern technology. Consider, for example, yttrium. Yttrium compounds are used in everything from jet engines to microwave radar to super-conductors and even dentistry.

Global production may be no more than 20,000 metric tonnes a year, accord-ing to the US Geological Survey, but in tiny quantities it’s just about everywhere.

So too are the other six metals now joining the Ministry of Finance's watch list. But the common theme is their use in permanent magnets.