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Rare earths and a handful of other minerals go into every electric motor, fighter jet, wind turbine and smartphone. China mines most of them and refines about nine tenths of the world's supply. In 2025 it began requiring licences for their export, and car plants in America, Europe and Japan stopped within weeks. It is the one field in which China holds over the United States the kind of lever America holds over China with chips.
The wider rivalry and each side's full account: The United States and China.
In September 2026 Chinese rare earth firms halted some shipments to the United States. On 18 September the two governments said they would discuss artificial intelligence and rare earths in trade talks. On 19 September the US Treasury's Bessent and China's He moved to open talks on artificial intelligence, trade and critical minerals. Talks began in New York on 20 September. On 24 September Trump and Xi moved toward extending their truce while the rare earth supply tightened.
A chokepoint. The minerals are not rare; refining them is dirty, costly and slow to build, and the West let China do it for thirty years. Replacing that takes a decade. Until then China can stop industries abroad by withholding a licence.
Symmetry. Washington tells the world which chips may be sold to China and claims that right over products made anywhere with American technology. Beijing now claims the same over products made anywhere with Chinese minerals.
China built its monopoly on purpose, with subsidies and by selling below cost until mines elsewhere closed, and now uses it as a weapon against civilian industry and against America's defence supply. No country can leave its jets and missiles dependent on a rival's goodwill. The United States and its allies will rebuild the whole chain, whatever it costs.
These are materials with military uses, and every state licenses such exports; America does so more than anyone. China developed this industry and bore its pollution while others preferred to import. The controls are lawful, apply to all countries alike, and would not exist had Washington not begun the practice with chips.
Washington's leaves out that its companies chose Chinese supply because it was cheap and the pollution stayed abroad, and that China's rules were copied from its own.
Beijing's leaves out that it cut off Japan in 2010 over a fishing boat and squeezed it again in 2026, that licences are granted and withheld by political calendar, and that the controls hit carmakers long before they touch any weapon.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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