Thread by @wmhuo168

China’s Rare Earth Gambit Is the Biggest Geoeconomic Power Move of the Decade. And the U.S. Still Doesn’t Get It.
A thread 🧵

China's Rare Earth Power Play: How "Economic Supremacy" Is Shaking America's $1.2 Trillion Tech Industry to Its Core share.google/382ol3ALl7FFZe…

China didn’t stumble into dominating 99% of global rare earth magnet production. It built that advantage through 30 years of strategic planning, state-backed industrial policy, and scientific rigor. (1/11)

While China was building national capability, we were gutting our own. Wall Street offshored critical mineral processing in the name of efficiency. Now China controls the supply, the tech, and the pricing. (2/11)

In April, Beijing slapped export controls on seven rare earths. U.S. tech firms, automakers, and weapons contractors were instantly exposed. The entire $1.2 trillion U.S. tech sector went into panic mode. (3/11)

This is not a "supply chain hiccup." It's a calibrated chokehold. A geoeconomic kill switch. And it’s working. Licenses are being denied. Prices are surging. U.S. firms are scrambling. (4/11)

The Pentagon responded with a $110/kg price floor to prop up domestic production. That’s industrial policy by brute force. A state-backed price guarantee. Proof the free market was never going to save us. (5/11)

Even with that, MP Materials still sends its ore to China for processing. So we subsidize U.S. mining while China captures the real value. You couldn’t script a more absurd dependency. (6/11)

Apple, terrified of supply disruptions, handed MP Materials $500 million just to secure magnet supply. This is the same Apple that hollowed out domestic suppliers to save pennies per device. (7/11)

Yes, there was a temporary trade “deal.” But let’s be honest. China turned the tap slightly back on, extracted concessions, and kept control. Xi offered a carrot. Blinken called it progress. (8/11)

The U.S. is now scrambling to rebuild rare earth capacity. But with 7-10 year permitting timelines and NIMBY lawsuits at every corner, it’s too slow. China can spin up a new plant in 14 months. (9/11)

This isn’t about phones or cars. It’s about missile guidance, satellite control, and energy transition tech. Whoever controls the magnets controls the machines. Whoever controls the machines controls the future. (10/11)

China treated rare earths like uranium. We treated them like soybeans. That’s the whole story. They’re right. We were wrong. And now we’re paying the price. (11/11)