China, the world's largest producer and exporter of rare earths elements, sharply reduced its overseas shipments of the critical product in the first five months of 2019, amid growing populist calls by nationalists and officials to use the country's stockpile as a tit-for-tat retaliation in its trade war with the United States.
Exports of rare earth elements fell 16% in May from a month earlier to 3,640 metric tons, according to the General Administration of Customs data.
According to the SCMP, the declines are pointing to the use of export permits over rare earth as leverage in China's trade negotiations with the US, the world's biggest importer of the elements.
The US was the world's largest importer of refined rare earth elements, with 59% of imports valued at US$92 million sourced from China, according to data by the US International Trade Commission.
Lower labour costs and more lenient environmental standards are some of the reasons why mining migrated from the US. As trade tensions have escalated, analysts are questioning whether Beijing will use the "Nuclear option", its dominance in the industry, as a check on efforts by US President Donald Trump to place tariffs on nearly all goods exported from China, as he seeks to change years of Chinese industrial and trade policy.
During the diplomatic stand-off in 2011, China briefly limited exports of rare earth materials to Japan in a row after a Chinese trawler collided with Japanese patrol boats near a disputed island.
That same year, Beijing placed quotas, licences and taxes on rare earth elements as the worldwide use of rare earths in clean energy and defence technologies was on the rise, causing rare earth prices to soar.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-10/chinese-rare-earth-exports-tumble-trade-war-accelerates
Exports of rare earth elements fell 16% in May from a month earlier to 3,640 metric tons, according to the General Administration of Customs data.
According to the SCMP, the declines are pointing to the use of export permits over rare earth as leverage in China's trade negotiations with the US, the world's biggest importer of the elements.
The US was the world's largest importer of refined rare earth elements, with 59% of imports valued at US$92 million sourced from China, according to data by the US International Trade Commission.
Lower labour costs and more lenient environmental standards are some of the reasons why mining migrated from the US. As trade tensions have escalated, analysts are questioning whether Beijing will use the "Nuclear option", its dominance in the industry, as a check on efforts by US President Donald Trump to place tariffs on nearly all goods exported from China, as he seeks to change years of Chinese industrial and trade policy.
During the diplomatic stand-off in 2011, China briefly limited exports of rare earth materials to Japan in a row after a Chinese trawler collided with Japanese patrol boats near a disputed island.
That same year, Beijing placed quotas, licences and taxes on rare earth elements as the worldwide use of rare earths in clean energy and defence technologies was on the rise, causing rare earth prices to soar.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-10/chinese-rare-earth-exports-tumble-trade-war-accelerates
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