It seems as if China is about to invoke a ban on Rare Earth mineral and metal exports,to the USA and its allies !
This is in reply to the USA increasing tariffs on Chinese exports into America. At the moment they have a massive trade surplus with America. The USA is trying to balance the "Playing field"as China uses many underhand methods to prevent fair trade.
China produces at least 85% of these rare earths and up to now has sold them at prices low enough to discourage any other country from developing their own sources.
These minerals include cobalt,spodium(lithium) and many others that most people have never heard of!
1.This is now an opportunity for other countries to to jump in and produce their share of this developing bonanza as prices are starting to rapidly increase!
2. A decade or so ago ,China was in a spat with Japan which has no minerals of any kind. Japan simply in electronics and cell phones etc. started substitution successfully and thus suffered very little discomfort. They are prepared to share this knowledge with the world.
3.Most of the minerals/metals are really not so rare but difficult to mine ,also the price being low and limited use has prevented much in development.
4. The USA has one small mine/factory ,but private enterprise is already planning massive expansion. This is likely to take another three years and many companies will sign long term contracts as one cannot then rely on supplies that can be interrupted at a moments notice.
There is a move afoot for more enterprises in this direction being planned which might take up to five years to be completely up and running.
5 Australia and Namibia have vast amounts of Spodium . And South Africa can extract cobalt easily from mines. All that is required to mine other minerals is the will and sound government without corruption to mine the various resources.
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