Trump Demands China Stop Hogging Rare Earth Minerals, “They Wouldn’t Be So Rare If You Just Shared”

China controls 90% of the world’s refined rare earth mineral output, something that it turns out we need for batteries and such. Now that’s a serious bargaining chip to hold hostage if you want to do any kind of negotiating with your enemy, the United States of America.

So now Trump’s got to break the stranglehold that China has on this sector if he’s even going to stand a chance in the upcoming/ongoing trade talks with the superpower.

So what’s he going to do? Well, he’s already made a deal with Australia to get their rare earths. (It’s rare because no other earths come from Australia.) But that might not be enough since it’s processing those earths that’s the issue and China does all that in house, that’s why they’re the market leaders in rare earths.

China Trump rare earth deal minecraft — The rare earth in question.

But here’s my question, how do you go about processing earths? If you clean a dirt then what do you have left? Nothing, surely. Like, earth is just dirt right, so if you clean off the dirt from the earth then you’re just cleaning off the earth from the earth. What are you left with? Nothing. …no wonder it’s rare, can’t get rarer than not existing…

Ok, but assuming that you can clean dirt or whatever, the US government’s been pushing to get more rare earth miners onto US soil, even going so far as to take a stake in some of these companies. Now, Trump’s looking to extend that to Australia, maybe Japan, but not China, they’re the bad guys.

China, China, China, China

AUS and US have agreed to $1 billion joint investments in the sector all to build a $8.5 billion pipeline…not a literally pipeline mind you. You can’t pump earth through a pipe. My roommate Darren is a plumber and he explained to me that pipes are for water and other liquids, if you start putting soil and metal into pipes they won’t work. Wise man that Darren.

All this is a useful play, for sure, but it’s main purpose is to break the stalemate in the trade talks. China recently withheld their rare earths because they know they’re rare and they know America wants them sooo badly.

But if Trump can break the US’s reliance on China’s earth then maybe they can get their 10000% tariffs through.

Idk, let’s see how this plays out.