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China Now Halting Shipments of Rare Earth Minerals To US
blackraven14250 writes with news that China, after putting at least a temporary stop to rare earth exports to Japan, is now doing the same with exports to the US; according to the linked article, this is in response to recent US promises to investigate certain Chinese trade practices.
When they are a sole supplier, it is terrorism.
Sigh....
terrorism-noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
By your reasoning, if Apple decided they didn't want to sell me an iPhone, Apple would be engaging in terrorism.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
"Thanks for perfectly illustrating why we are in this situation. "This is America!" is a meaningless phrase."
Acutally according to the article he might be on to something: "U.S. rare earth companies have begun looking to reopen old mines and search for new deposits, but industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years."
I know it says 15 years, but I have a feeling that if China really decided to withhold rare earth minerals for an extended time we'd find a supply a bit faster.
The only reason we use China's rare earth minerals is because they mine it and ship it to the US cheaper than we can mine it ourselves: "many U.S. companies have not jumped into the market because China's state-owned mines keep rare earth prices artificially low."
But we have plenty to mine: "the U.S. holds rare earth ore reserves of up to 13 million metric tons. By contrast, the entire world produced just 124,000 metric tons in 2009". That means we have roughly 104 years worth of rare earth ore reserves, I think we'll be just fine.
China's kind of like the neighbor kid that knocks on my door and offers to mow the lawn for $20. It's not that I can't mow myself, but when it's so cheap to pay someone else why do it myself? If he ever didn't show up for a couple weeks I'd just do it myself, but as long as he's offering I'll keep paying him.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Exactly, and as a Brazilian I can emphasize that the US subsidies on sugar cane and corn have been affecting us for decades. Brazil has been complaining to the WTO since a long time ago and recently we started getting some victories there. It is the same thing with a lot of countries in Europe. I know there is no saint in this fight, but it seems very hypocritical to me to see Americans complaining about China practices when they have been doing the same thing to others for years and years.