Once dismissed as a "nuclear option" that would only be invoked by Beijing as a last resort in the burgeoning trade war with the US, it's looking increasingly likely that the Communist Party might impose an export ban on rare-earth metals, creating serious supply-chain issues for American producers of everything from microchips, to batteries, to night-vision goggles.
After Global Times editor and Trump Twitter foil Hu Xijin warned on Tuesday that a ban was being 'seriously considered' (which followed a visit by President Xi and Vice Premier Liu He to a rare-earth mine that was widely seen as a threatening gesture), China's powerful state-planning body threatened to use rare earths as "China's counter-weapon against the US's unwarranted suppression"...while a host of state-controlled media organizations used rare threatening language intended to convey that Beijing isn't playing around.
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