Xi’s Rare Earths Bargaining Chip Is a Trade War Game Changer

Big Take

2025-10-23

24 分钟
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China’s dominance of rare earths has given Xi Jinping powerful leverage over Donald Trump ahead of their expected meeting next week.  On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha and Bloomberg’s Daniel Ten Kate dig into how China is weaponizing rare earths and what the economic standoff means for a trade deal and the future of US-China relations. Read more: Xi Is Never Giving Up His Newfound Leverage Over TrumpFurther listening: Xi’s Bromance Diplomacy Is Challenging Trump’s World OrderThe Rebel Army Behind One of the World’s Major Rare-Earth Supplies See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Certainly, there are a lot of people that are waiting for it.

  • Maybe it won't happen.

  • Maybe it won't happen.

  • Things can happen where, for instance, maybe somebody will say, I don't want to meet.

  • It's too nasty.

  • But it's really not nasty, it's just business.

  • The US went from negligible tariffs on China to 10%, then 20, then 54, then 104, then 145.

  • There's no shortage of sticking points in a potential trade deal between the US and China.

  • But Bloomberg's Daniel Ten Kate, executive editor of Government and Economics in Asia,

  • says he's watching one critical element of these negotiations closely.

  • As long as China agrees not to really disrupt the flow of rare earth magnets,

  • then you could see that they could come to some sort of agreement where they extend this tentative truce.

  • When China announced sweeping new controls on its exports of rare earths earlier this month,

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Beijing of pointing a bazooka at the global supply chain.

  • But within 48 hours, Trump had backed off.

  • I don't want them to play the rare earth game with us.

  • And on Monday, the President signed a landmark deal with Australia to boost its supplies of rare earths as a strategic counter to China.

  • The deal outlines 8.5 billion dollars worth of projects with both nations initially committing one billion dollars over the next six months.

  • In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them.