China Mulls Restricting Exports Of Tech Elements To US

Reuters reports:

Beijing is “seriously considering” restricting exports to the United States of rare earths, 17 key chemical elements used in high-tech consumer electronics and military equipment, the editor in chief of China’s Global Times said on Tuesday.

Rising trade tensions have led to concerns that Beijing will use its dominant position as a supplier of rare earths for leverage in the trade war between the United States and China.

China accounted for 80% of rare earth imports between 2014 and 2017 by the United States, which has excluded them from recent tariffs along with some other critical Chinese minerals.

Per Wikipedia, the 17 minerals are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).