Xi Sends Trump A Message: Rare-Earth Export Ban Is Coming

[Achilles]

Xi Sends Trump A Message: Rare-Earth Export Ban Is Coming

by Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/21/2019 - 04:10


Back in April of 2018, when the trade war with China was still in its early stages, we explained that among the five "nuclear" options Beijing has to retaliate against the US, one was the block of rare-earth exports to the US, potentially crippling countless US supply chains that rely on these rare commodities, and forcing painful and costly delays in US production as alternative supply pathways had to be implemented.
As a result, for many months China watchers expected Beijing to respond to Trump's tariff hikes by blocking the exports of one or more rare-earths, although fast forwarding one year later this still hasn't happened. But that doesn't mean it won't happen, and overnight President Xi Jinping’s visit to a rare earths facility fueled speculation that the strategic materials will soon be weaponized in China’s tit-for-tat war the US.
As Bloomberg reported overnight, shares in JL MAG Rare-Earth surged by the daily limit on Monday after Xinhua said the Chinese president had stopped by the company in Jiangxi, a scripted move designed to telegraph what China could do next.

The reason for the dramatic market response is that the presidential visit flags policy priorities, and "rare earths have featured in the escalating trade spat between the U.S. and China." Specifically, as Bloomberg notes, China raised tariffs to 25% from 10% on American imports, while the U.S. excluded rare earths from its own list of prospective tariffs on roughly $300 billion worth of Chinese goods to be targeted in the next wave of measures. And just in case the White House missed the message, Xi was accompanied on the trip to JL MAG by Liu He, the vice premier who has led the Chinese side in the trade negotiations.
Why does China have a clear advantage in this area? Simple: the U.S. relies on China, the dominant global supplier, for about 80% of its rare earths imports.
The visit “sends a warning signal to the U.S. that China may use rare earths as a retaliation measure as the trade war heats up,” said Pacific Securities analyst Yang Kunhe. That could include curbs on rare earth exports to the U.S., he said.
Xi's visit came just hours after the Trump administration on Friday blacklisted Huawei and threatened to cut it off from the U.S. software and semiconductors it needs to make its products. A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry told reporters Monday to “please wait and see” how the government and companies respond.
Of course, a Chinese export curb, or ban, would also cripple domestic producers, as domestic rare earth miners would be hurt, and likely need state subsidies, similar to US soybean farmers. But curbs could potentially help companies like JL MAG, which makes magnets containing rare earths that are used in products including electric vehicles and wind turbines.
Finally, to those looking to trade a potential rare-earth export ban, one place would be to go long the REMX rare earth ETF, which after hitting an all time high of $114 in 2011 during the first rare-earth "scare" during the China-Japan trade war, is trading some 90% lower as the market has all but discounted any possibility of a price spike.

Needless to say, should China lock out the US, the price of rare earths could soar orders of magnitude higher.


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ort-ban-coming

[Samuel Adams]

In simpler terms, Americans.....you can have cheap rate earth, now, or have a far more independent and stable home economy and manufacturing base, in the long run.

[KingsX]

What are these "rare-earth" elements, how are they used
and why rely on an overtly Communist China for them ??

[Rhodie]

In simpler terms, Americans.....you can have cheap rate earth, now, or have a far more independent and stable home economy and manufacturing base, in the long run.

Or
The Companies get innovative and figure a way around using those rare earth materials.
The Mother of necessity has always been a very strong reason to think out side of the box!

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
George S. Patton


We are called Americans, not Americant's.

Rhodie

[Hoppalong]

What are these "rare-earth" elements, how are they used
and why rely on an overtly Communist China for them ??

The group consists of yttrium and the 15 lanthanide elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium).
Uses of Rare Earth Elements. Rare earth metals and alloys that contain them are used in many devices that people use every day such as computer memory, DVDs, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, catalytic converters, magnets, fluorescent lighting and much more.

The name “rare earth” is a historical misnomer, stemming from the fact that when they first discovered they were difficult to extract from surrounding matter. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) describes rare earth elements as “moderately abundant,” meaning that they’re not as common as elements like oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and iron (which together make up 90 percent of the Earth’s crust), but still well dispersed around the planet.
The rare earth element cerium, for example, is the 25th most abundant on Earth, making it about as common as copper. But unlike copper and similarly well-known elements, such as gold and silver, rare earths don’t clump together in single-element lumps. Instead, because of their similar chemical composition (15 of the 17 rare earth elements occupy consecutive places on the periodic table), they bond freely with one another in minerals and clays.
As the academic David S. Abraham explains in his book on the topic, The Elements of Power, this makes for a grueling extraction process. To create rare earths from the ore that contains them the extracted material has to be dissolved in solutions of acids, over and over again, then filtered, and dissolved once more. “The goal is not so much to remove rare earths from the mix as to remove everything else,” writes Abraham.

[Samuel Adams]

Sounds like another splendid opportunity for American mining, smelting and manufacturing.

[Hoppalong]

Yes it does unless some stupid EPA ruling brought to you by the left, does not get in there way.

[merovingian]

Everything Trump is doing has the potential to make America great again, though the process may be somewhat difficult, even painful, and the Americans of today are a lazy and spoiled bunch.

[merovingian]

And to reinforce my stated belief I submit the following:

China's Economic "Super-Weapon" Would Devastate Its Rare-Earth Exporters


Tue, 05/21/2019 - 18:05
Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank

Earth

With nationalism to the fore, for a change, talk of a “people’s war”, and with China telling the US it has “unwavering resolve” to fight “bullying” --a change from “imperialism”, which China itself is now accused of in some quarters-- President Xi Jinping went to visit a rare earths facility yesterday. That was no accident. Nothing in Chinese politics is an accident. It was a signal that China can turn off the taps on rare earths exports to the US if pushed much further. Yet such a step would devastate its rare earth exporters; it would show the world they cannot rely on China as a supplier; and it would be the final(?) nail in the coffin of a ‘macro 101’ model of how the world works. (As if that is needed a day after US President Trump publicly stated he’s “very happy” with the trade war and that the Chinese economy won’t be number one on his watch.)

After all, rare earths aren’t actually rare. Lots of countries, including the US, Japan, Brazil, India, and South Africa, have them in abundance. China only controls 80% of global supply because it subsidised its state-owned firms until they achieved economy-of-scale dominance in the same way as it is seen trying to do in other industrial sectors, which has generated the current China backlash. In short, mercantilism–meets-Mr.Magoo-free-markets means Beijing got the whip hand over the industrial global supply chain for a vital input in order to save a few dollars. One sees why it’s time to say goodbye to macro 101. Indeed, if there aren’t governments planning to massively boost rare earths output in Australia, California, India, Japan, Vietnam, and Brazil, etc., then I will eat my hat. China will soon find that its latest economic ‘super-weapon’ is another dud.

Wind

You want to see a real super-weapon? Look at the US decision to cut Huawei off from Western technology yesterday. How is Huawei supposed to function without the high-end silicon chips China can’t make, and which neither US nor European firms will now supply? It has 12-months of stock…and then what? (And in terms of the global economic impact, please note South Korea’s May 1-20 chip exports plunged -33% y/y before any of this happened!) Equally, how is Huawei supposed to sell 5G phones when it cannot update Google’s Android software? Of course, some say China will develop its own high-end silicon chips and proprietary operating system (OS). It might do that…but that’s a very hard thing to achieve when cut off from the West – and it’s much harder to do than digging up rare earths. If China could just do it, why hasn’t it until now? Because they believe in macro 101? Really?! Indeed, the announcement today that Huawei will roll out its own OS imminently looks like ‘wind’ to me… unless it is called “Ban-droid”. Will it come bundled with the Little Red App of Xi Jinping thought? As someone said on Game of Thrones when it was still good, “Power is power.” And this, is power, folks. Not visiting a rare earths factory for the cameras.

However, the White House has just announced the Huawei hamstringing will be delayed by 90 days, with existing equipment to be serviced for that period, not new products, presumably to allow room for that crucial G-20 head-to-head between Trump and Xi, and also to allow US firms to gird their loins for the disruption that this ban is going to cause. Can we agree that the stakes for that G-20 are going higher and higher, especially for China? As such, this is still very much a long USD, short CNY, if indirectly, and EM FX environment as we get to see the full power of this fully operational battle station. The Fed’s Powell meanwhile says “the outcome of the trade negotiations is not known, is highly uncertain, and it would be premature” for the Fed to make a judgement (and hence rate call) on the back of it. Not known, yes; uncertain, arguably no. The balance of risks must be clear, even to the Fed(?)

Fire!

It would be tempting to shift to talk about Iran or North Korea under that sub-heading (Trump has just said again that any Iranian action will be with “great force”), but I turn to the RBA. Just days after the election, the (comprehensively recidivist) Australian Prudential Regulation Authority –which presided over an epic housing bubble driven by lax lending standards-- is about to loosen its loan guidance again. Instead of most lenders having to assume a 7.25% mortgage rate ahead when assessing a borrower’s repayment ability --as opposed to 10x income interest-only loans on fantasy income-- the new rule will be to assume rates 2.5% above the current mortgage rate. Does this mean the Aussie bubble is baaaack? Nope. But it means the RBA are going to cut aggressively, because when borrowers had to assume a 7.25% rate regardless of where the actual interest rate was, there was no advantage for the housing market in cutting. Now there will be: if the RBA slashes rates 125bp, for example, all of that can get passed on. So, RBA, fire!

Indeed, the RBA’s minutes today showed the conservative bank noting “…members considered the scenario where there was no further improvement in the labour market in the period ahead, recognising that in those circumstances a decrease in the cash rate would likely be appropriate….” In short, they have now moved from expecting the labour market to get better to admitting that even if it stays the same, rather than unemployment rising, a cut is warranted! That door to easing is easing open. We next hear from Governor Lowe later in the day, and one wonders if he will also signal this more clearly?



https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...arth-exporters

[KingsX]

The group consists of yttrium and the 15 lanthanide elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium).
Uses of Rare Earth Elements. Rare earth metals and alloys that contain them are used in many devices that people use every day such as computer memory, DVDs, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, catalytic converters, magnets, fluorescent lighting and much more.

The name “rare earth” is a historical misnomer, stemming from the fact that when they first discovered they were difficult to extract from surrounding matter. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) describes rare earth elements as “moderately abundant,” meaning that they’re not as common as elements like oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and iron (which together make up 90 percent of the Earth’s crust), but still well dispersed around the planet.
The rare earth element cerium, for example, is the 25th most abundant on Earth, making it about as common as copper. But unlike copper and similarly well-known elements, such as gold and silver, rare earths don’t clump together in single-element lumps. Instead, because of their similar chemical composition (15 of the 17 rare earth elements occupy consecutive places on the periodic table), they bond freely with one another in minerals and clays.
As the academic David S. Abraham explains in his book on the topic, The Elements of Power, this makes for a grueling extraction process. To create rare earths from the ore that contains them the extracted material has to be dissolved in solutions of acids, over and over again, then filtered, and dissolved once more. “The goal is not so much to remove rare earths from the mix as to remove everything else,” writes Abraham.

Interesting... thanks for posting.