Rare Earth Retaliation: China Chokes America’s War Machine | Gerry Nolan

China just halted exports of key rare earths to the US, slapping export controls on seven categories of critical metals and magnets used in everything from EVs and smartphones to fighter jets, missiles, and drones, delivering a surgical strike to the spinal cord of America’s supply chain. Welcome to the new trade war: geoeconomic strangulation, without firing a shot.

China halts export of key rare earth minerals and develops a ‘regulatory system’ 

to completely block certain minerals from reaching specific US companies.

 

[...] You want to slap 145% tariffs on our goods? Fine. But good luck assembling a single Javelin, F-35, or iPhone without our dysprosium, terbium, and neodymium. China controls over 90% of global rare earth production. Washington just remembered that the hard way. This isn’t just a tit-for-tat move. It’s strategic economic warfare, targeting the soft underbelly of US dominance: the illusion that it can wage hybrid war without being vulnerable itself.

» Dumber than a sack of bricks. «

And now? The US is scrambling: Talking about deep-sea mining, rushing to build stockpiles, and begging Australia and Canada to step up. Canada, eh? Too little, too late. You spent three decades offshoring everything, and now your empire can’t build a toaster, let alone a missile guidance system, without Beijing’s blessing. Ok, maybe you can build a toaster, to be fair. [...] Every chip, every drone, every smart weapon in the Pentagon’s closet runs on components China can choke off in 48 hours. Trump called it “Liberation Day.” 

 

Quoted from:

Gerry Nolan (April 13, 2025) - Rare Earth Retaliation: China Chokes America’s War Machine.