President Trump has been in office for about five months. He has cleaned up some of the mess he inherited, but there are going to be things that are going to take a while. Our government has not always done a good job of predicting and dealing with future problems. The problem of obtaining rare earth minerals is one that could be very serious in the coming months.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article in The Asia Times<\/a>. The article reported:<\/p>\n America usually has other countries over a barrel. Not the other way around \u2013 unless you\u2019re old enough to remember when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cracked the whip and Washington and the West usually fell in line.<\/strong><\/p>\n But last week China forced President Trump to back down on tough tariffs that were hurting the PRC.<\/strong><\/p>\n Rare earth minerals.\u00a0They\u2019re nearly all sourced from China and Beijing choked off exports.<\/strong><\/p>\n Major American companies \u2013 car makers for example \u2013 warned Trump they\u2019d have to curtail or shut down operations<\/a> in a matter of weeks.<\/strong><\/p>\n …The Trump administration reduced tariffs<\/a> in exchange for Beijing\u2019s sort-of agreement to allow rare earth exports to US customers.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n How much and how fast is unknown \u2013 but expect the PRC to slow-roll this and squeeze all it can \u2013 such as sensitive business data<\/a> \u2013 from its customers.<\/strong><\/p>\n At best, this is a temporary reprieve.<\/strong><\/p>\n The US side also agreed to drop plans to ban Chinese students from US universities.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s not that they are rare.\u00a0The US has plenty of rare earths.\u00a0It\u2019s just much cheaper to source from China, and US environmental laws make domestic mining and processing difficult and expensive.<\/strong><\/p>\n They are essential for commercial manufacturing \u2013 cars, electronics, computers, etc.<\/strong><\/p>\n And more ominously they\u2019re needed for military production \u2013 to include aircraft, ships, submarines, radars, missiles, lasers, satellites, guidance systems, night vision devices and more.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s not Trump\u2019s fault.\u00a0He got caught holding the hot potato.<\/strong><\/p>\n China\u2019s chokehold on rare earths was known a long time ago.<\/strong><\/p>\n American business and the US military knew.\u00a0And Congress knew as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n And they knew the Chinese might use their dominant position to squeeze other countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2010 after Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat that rammed a Coast Guard ship near Japan\u2019s Senkaku islands, China banned<\/a> rare earth exports to Japan.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0Japanese industry squirmed.\u00a0The boat and its skipper were returned.<\/strong><\/p>\n And Japan set about finding alternate sources of rare earths.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The United States?<\/strong><\/p>\n Apparently it did nothing.<\/strong><\/p>\n It was 15 years of idiocy by the business class, officialdom and the military\u2019s perfumed princes.<\/strong><\/p>\n Please follow the link for further information. We need to be mining our own rare earth elements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Trump has been in office for about five months. He has cleaned up some of the mess he inherited, but there are going to be things that are going to take a while. Our government has not always done … Continue reading