Posted on 09/06/2010 11:33:14 AM PDT by goldendays
Backlash over China curb on metal exports China's draconian export curbs on rare earth minerals needed by the rest of the world for frontier technologies is escalating into a serious diplomatic and trade clash with the United States and other leading powers.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Japan's foreign minister Katsuya Okada issued what amounted to a formal protest at top-level meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing over the weekend, saying the sudden cut-off was "affecting the global production chain". It is the latest sign of rising pressure after angry complaints by companies outside China that rely on this family of 17 metals for hybrid cars, mobile phones, superconductors, navigation, and a host of high-tech industries.
Lawrence Daly China's commerce minister Chen Deming said that Beijing would not back down over the export quotas. "Mass-extraction of rare earth will cause great damage to the environment, that's why China has tightened controls," he said, repeating the official line. Beijing set off shockwaves in early July when it announced a 72pc reduction in rare earth exports over the second half of this year.
The country has acquired a near monopoly, with 97pc of global output after under-cutting the rest of the world with Mongolian ores in the 1990s. The sudden cut-off since July has drastically restricted supplies to the rest of world. The last US mine shut 14 years ago, discouraged by tough US environmental rules.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
To me this is the same as California complaining that Texas wont sell them enough energy to prevent blackouts there during the summer. TUFF, build your OWN power plants in California if you want energy, build your own dams in California if you want water.
Maybe if California ran out of water and energy the environmental movement there could be killed once and for all.
But, as long as other states keep enabling them, they will continue to push their environmental agenda of death on the rest of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuagi9kZe8A
Douglas MacArthur Farewell Speech to Congress
OPEC 2 except with a much less diversified supply base. The left in its zeal to make us less dependent on foreign supplies of oil wants to make us even more dependent on rare earth metals. We are witnessing the predictable result of govenment control of a vital industry. Politicians have no stake in the result except for the next election. Even then, they have a host of scapegoats to blame for their ridiculous policies.
“Mass-extraction of rare earth will cause great damage to the environment, that’s why China has tightened controls,” he said, repeating the official line.
The last US mine shut 14 years ago, discouraged by tough US environmental rules.
LOL Good. We deserve it for caving to enviro natzis and other nuts.
Without rare earth metals, you can't make batteries, electronics, solar cells, electric cars, windmills, nuclear reactors, handcuffs for dissidents...the list is almost endless.
gop and talk radio should jump on this
Refusing to tariff their foreign competition was another major factor. Without a return to protectionism the level of foreign dependency will only continue until we are irreversibly screwed.
Such an obvious move to keep the manufacture of rare-earth based components cheaper in China than anywhere else, and so further encourage Western companies to continue migrating their mfg & associated technology secrets to China.
As for Japan's protests, that's all for show. Japan and China have become quite good buddies as Eamon Fingleton in his book IN THE JAWS OF THE DRAGON has so clearly exposed. If you want to see how East Asia has manipulated free-traders to screw America over since the end of WW2, that's the book to read.
I have high hopes that Beck will publicize this. It leads right to the multiple Democrat/Chinese arrangements that date back to the Clinton years and reach right into the White Hut.
The Michael Steele/John McCain Axis of Apathy and Vichy Bipartisanship, investigate their other half?
Hold not thy breath.
That's right. Forcing American manufacturers to pay even more for rare, raw materials was the only strategic option . . . given that we were shutting our own mines down. /s
They don’t pay the tax - we do.
100% - and those jobs were destroyed by insane union wage demands and endless EPA and other rules which made it too expensive to stay here.
I was a steelworker & I watched it happen.
You can tax foreign products 400% and it will not change a thing - the unfavorable business conditions here remain and unless they are removed, those businesses will never be back.
We have regulated industry right out of America.
And you want US to pay for the tariffs?? Sheesh!
Consider that there are other factors besides the presence of the material in mineable quantities.
I talked with a guy today who is importing frac sand (size graded quartz sand used to prop open the fractures generated during hydrofracking the pay horizons in an oil well). It costs less to ship it halfway around the world and 2000 miles from the nearest port than it does to dig up similar sand in the US.
The difference is in the regulatory hoops one must jump through to dig up sand here. Any mining operation in the US faces the same problems, and that is what shut down the last rare earth mineral mine in the US.
Sadly, at the core of that problem lies another: the people with the expertise needed to extract these minerals are in shorter supply than they used to be, and their diminishing numbers of would-be replacements aren't getting the vital OJT they will need to avoid reinventing the wheel if and when we restore our manufacturing economy.
They were shut down because they could not compete against subsidized foreign competition. Then, like how fallujah-nuker pointed out with regard to American mercury mines, once they were out of the way foreign suppliers were free to raise their prices as much as they wanted. They knew no one would go back to try re-investing in American rare-earth mines with such a high probability they would just be undercut again and lose their investment.
The goods don't get in until the tariff is paid and the check clears. Whether the imported products sell or not. As for American's paying a higher price on imports as a result of tariffs, that has been the way of most of America's 200 years of history. It has been responsible for most of America's non-war related industrial & middle-class growth from 1800-1960. Tariffs, properly applied, make American farming, mining, and mfg the "go-first" source and counter-act foreign competition. If foreign govt intervention continues to compensate for the tariffs, then other tools used before in our history such as import quotas can also be put into effect.
Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. It's going to take about as long to un-screw this country as it took to get it screwed over. If you want to cheap your way to America's future destruction/subjugation then by all means continue supporting keeping our policies the way they are. But I suggest you make sure your children and grand-children learn Chinese. That way they'll have no problem understanding their future Chinese master's orders.
So our tariffs on Chinese rare-earths didn't work, then. And the EPA didn't hamstring the Mountain Pass operation. And the Chinese purchase of Magnequench (and nearly the purchase of Unocal) was inconsequential, according to CFIUS.
Yup, not our government's fault in the slightest. Just "subsidized foreign competition" to blame (in a market that has been reasonably stable over the past couple of decades).
Of course it's our govt's fault! They set the trade policies, signed the trade treaties, and refused to take meaningful action against predatory activities by foreign corporations backed by their govts. Allowing the sale of Magnequench was another sign of how far the Chicom govt has sunk it's talons into our political system.
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