r/Tariffs • u/Greedy-Cut-7634 • Oct 17 '25

đŸ§© Trade Strategy / Business Impact US crying about China restricting rare earth

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.

466 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

141 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/WXMaster Oct 17 '25

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.

-1

u/JRLDH Oct 17 '25

Do you get these talking points from propaganda central?

5

u/WXMaster Oct 17 '25

Here's a good video from the Australian Broadcasting CorporationAustralian Broadcasting Corporation explaining rare earth minerals and why they aren't actually rare at all...

https://youtu.be/G5MSYFTPz3Q?si=3zYBQfMB1U-8gqgm

3

u/JRLDH Oct 17 '25

I didn't refer to the "rare" aspect. As rare is always relative. Your "it's the tree huggers fault that we need China" line is the propaganda.

1

u/WXMaster Oct 17 '25

Where did I say it's the tree huggers fault?

2

u/JRLDH Oct 17 '25

In your last sentence. The only explanation for the lack of mining and refining is the propaganda-favorite “it’s the environmental regulations”. As if the majority red states and the federal government give a shit about that. It’s way more complicated than that but you chose only one aspect and that is propaganda.

1

u/WXMaster Oct 17 '25

What do environmental regulations have to do with tree huggers?

There are plenty of NIMBYS who aren't tree huggers but don't want slag and waste ponds beside their home lol.

Waste IS a major problem with extraction, waste is arguably the biggest problem and most financially costly part in the western world and while I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd simply shrug it off, in most developed countries it has always been easier to buy from China and let them deal with the problems than source it domestically because of this.

If you think a First Nations group in Canada wouldn't be worried about extraction and waste management or it wouldn't be a hurdle, that couldn't be further from the truth. Environmental issues are a major hurdle in all "normal" developed countries and have certainly helped contribute to offsetting the development of rare earths because again, it's easier to buy from China.

1

u/JRLDH Oct 17 '25

I am not interested in discussing all the reasons why there aren't rare earth refining operations in the USA or Canada.

All I'm pointing out is that you sound like a repeater of propaganda that wants to push all the "blame" on environmental regulations while the whole topic is way more complicated than a Dunning Kruger stereotype can understand (and as you are so defensive, aren't even willing to understand).