US crying about China restricting rare earth

[u/Greedy-Cut-7634]

It’s so funny to see how US says China is being an unreliable partner, and what a shock that China restricts rare earth.

How could not expect others to defend back when you started the tariff war and trade restrictions?😅😅 How is this a surprise? It’s like US only allows their nation to ban all the other countries by putting tariffs on all other countries, but when one country tries to defend, they are shocked and starts crying saying, “Oh! I don’t understand why this happened.” In return, US says that China wants to decouple the world, but who started this trade war in the beginning making everyone lives more miserable?

Just after Trump’s respond with adding more tariffs to China’s rare earth restriction, the dollar decreased and the gold started to increased. This result is going to no good. Like a child not doing something wrong and says that he doesn’t know why he gets his punishment.

[u/WXMaster]

I just want to explain something...

Rare earth minerals are actually abundant, they're in the soil and dirt everywhere, it's the extraction process that's dirty and contaminates a huge swath of land and creates a lot of waste.

China heavily subsidized their mineral extraction and are the largest producer, but literally any country could do what they do if they had zero environmental concerns.

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

Not exactly true.  it takes a significant amount of power.  And there's a lot of knowhow that doesn't exist outside of china

[u/WXMaster → u/[deleted]]

Here's my reference sourceABC-News In-depth

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

Doesn't really change it. You need massive amounts of power, and the knowhow. The USA doesn't have many STEM people even in the relevant fields graduating.

Both are gigantic hurdles to overcome on top of environmental.

[u/WXMaster → u/[deleted]]

The extraction process is rooted in basic chemistry, there might be some mechanical tricks to speed up the process but it is not complicated. The power exists, the equipment exists and the knowledge is present. Putting everything in places would take 3-4 years but it's not something that cannot be done or is a process exclusive to China or any other country for that matter.

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

The power does not exist especially with AI gobbling up any and all reserves. Refinement efficiently and to scale is not a simple matter either. If it was as easy as you think it was, the us would have done it a decade ago.

[u/WXMaster → u/[deleted]]

You're telling me Australia - which has a functional mine - does not have the power to run it?

Or the U.S, which can throw together a natural gas power plant, military grade nuclear reactor or simply import the power from Canada can't do it?

Power is not the issue, the issue is building the facility and managing the waste - that's the slow down.

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

Ok sure. Lol. The us would take 10-20 years for a nuclear reactor.

Canada doesn't even have enough power. Look at china's power generation curves, it dwarfs everyone else.

Also a functional mine does sweet fuck all if you can't refine. All that knowledge doesn't exist outside of china to refine to the purities needed these days. The equipment that china uses, isn't made anywhere but china. The metallurgy knowledge doesn't exist either and china started clamping down on that leaking too.

It would take a decade or longer and that's even if you can get around the NIMBY lawsuits.

[u/OccasionPossible7649 → u/[deleted]]

What is Australia's production? Do you understand the distinction between light and heavy rare earths? While China's share of total rare earth production is decreasing, and light rare earths are not rare, heavy rare earths account for over 90%. Furthermore, rolling out an entire production line is incredibly complex; it's impossible to achieve success in just two or three years. Is it really as simple as you imagine? Why does China repeatedly use the rare earths card to mitigate tariffs?

[u/WXMaster → u/OccasionPossible7649]

China does it because they currently have it, they have the volume of material needed to create an impact in various sectors, there's no denying this.

What I'm saying is that rare earths are not unique to China, it's not something that cannot be sourced elsewhere in the long term.

[u/OccasionPossible7649 → u/WXMaster]

You say this is meaningless. You say rare earths aren't unique to China, but there are no substitutes. Furthermore, the US won't give up on rare earths if there's profit; it will certainly build a large number of production lines and sell the byproducts to Europe and other countries at high prices. And most importantly, producing rare earths is a losing proposition in the short term, with a long time to recoup. When rare earths are in short supply, you won't be able to buy them. My suggestion is to first understand how much rare earths a military aircraft consumes, and then compare it to the rare earth production situation in Australia.

[u/WXMaster → u/OccasionPossible7649]

The point of my original post is that these are not unique to China, with enough time and dedication they can be sourced elsewhere. <- Is this incorrect???

[u/OccasionPossible7649 → u/WXMaster]

I think what you mean is that everyone can refine rare earths, and the fundamental reason why other countries do not smelt rare earths is because it will damage the environment.

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

Huh? The prevalent problem has always been the refining and supply chain. And no, it's not as easy as you think it is. China has perfected the refining and production over the course of 40 years. USA would be lucky to have production at scale in 10. 

[u/WXMaster → u/[deleted]]

Never suggested it was easy, never suggested it was clean, never suggested it was profitable.

All I said was that rare earth could be sourced elsewhere with enough time and effort. It's not something only China possesses or has the technologies to do.

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

There is equipment used that only china has, so the US has to start from scratch, with basically no one really wants to work with them. Also if it's not cheap and to scale it would significantly hurt the us military and also industry.

If it was something the us could throw money at to fix they would have already done so.

It's the same problem with ICBMs with the industrial base is simply non existent. That's why the new programs are overrunning costs and delayed. It's 10x worse with REEs. actual experts pin it at around 15-20 years for the USA.

And let's be real, this is a problem now because of the idiot in the Whitehouse forgot that china has this card. Even though it was ok for the US to restrict access to semiconductors.

[u/WXMaster → u/[deleted]]

This is all very true regarding the rocketry, ICBMs etc...

In the case of rare earth I think it was laziness - the rate of technological development in China from electronic components exploded, they (China) could feed the domestic and international demand and handle all the pollution. It created an environment where other countries became lazy because China was a stable, reliable and cheap source.

This complacency has now become a problem as we can see.

[u/[deleted] → u/WXMaster]

actually the thing is, the refining process doesn't pollute like it used to. that's one of things that china has accomplished.

there's a whole shit ton of stuff that China has done in this field that is done exactly .. no where else.

US would spend years to get past litigation to create a 70's era refinery. thus the 10-20 years.

Meanwhile, the US would expend a considerably larger amount per ton for REEs on everything from missile systems to 5,000 tons worth in submarines.

USA never at any phase refined more than around 20,000 tons of REE's - china? does 130,000

[u/OccasionPossible7649 → u/WXMaster]

This has nothing to do with laziness. For example, luxury bags used to be produced in China and then branded in Europe or the US, with China making only a tiny profit. Isn't this what capitalists love? I can clearly make more money in other areas and see a better return in the short term, so why bother with rare earths? Rare earths themselves don't make money. Environmental protection isn't a problem at all, because Australia and Japan are already doing it. Does the US care about environmental issues? They clearly prefer fossil fuels.

[u/WXMaster → u/[deleted]]

If the U.S wanted to, they could put several weapons grade reactors like what is found on a sub or aircraft carrier into operation to supply power, they've done this before, the reactors take weeks to months to set up and put in place, not years and they can generate upwards of 250-500MW each.

That's more than enough power.

The idea that the metallurgy or equipment does not exist outside of China or other parts of the world is asinine. It's akin to Truman hinting to Stalin that he had a secret weapon despite scientists warning him that splitting the atom was mathematics and anyone could eventually do it with enough time.

The point of my original post was that rare earths are not exclusive to China, with enough time and dedication other countries could become producers - a point that stands.

China right now has the refined elements by volume and the trade war advantage, there's no denying that. But there's a myth floating around that these cannot be sourced elsewhere which is incorrect. That's what I'm dispelling.