Yup. But the West is addicted, and the time is already past, such that only major repair will work. We are about 4 percent of the world's population, and our manufacturing has been offshore for too long. Time to make and profit within these borders. Which means dumping "our idiotic leadership who are intentionally devaluing the US dollar."
Didn't read the remainder of the paywall article, though, because Market Watch wants some dollars. A wee bit of irony, rather like today's gold sellers, who want liquidity today. Forecast, "clever" China's real future opposition are "clever" Asian nations, India and Africa, which won't remain shackled to the Belt and Road game.
This nation can be far more autarkic than "our idiotic leadership" allows it to be, because if we were more self-sufficient, those international middlemen would lose their grip.
—” our manufacturing has been offshore for too long.”
Rocks from Africa, and that is not changing any time soon.
Most people are aware that the US had minuscule magnesium production before World War II. Then pulled a rabbit out of a hat!
Those days are long gone...
Gm sold its pioneering rare-earth magnet division, Magnequench, to a Chinese-linked consortium in the 1990’s...
Time only flows in one direction.
Autarky kind of/sort of works for North Korea; still, they starve.