Suppliers to U.S. aerospace and semiconductor firms face worsening rare earth shortages, with two turning away some clients, industry insiders said, weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for a summit in Beijing.

The shortages center on rare earths such as yttrium and scandium, niche members of the family of 17 elements, which play tiny but vital roles in defence technology, aerospace and semiconductors and are almost entirely produced in China....

While Beijing has allowed many rare earth exports to resume since it imposed restrictions in April, shipments of these materials still rarely make it to the U.S. despite the October detente with Washington, Chinese customs data show.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/rare-earth-shortages-worsen-us-aerospace-chips-despite-trade-truce-sources-say-2026-02-26/

Giving the US rare earth is like giving a psychopathic homicidal murderer a gun. Eventually he's going to use it on you.
So China is smart cutting the US from rare earth to use in its weapons industry. They'll use the rare earth to build they weapons that they are promising they'll use on China by 2030.

Beijing is a fool to sell it to their enemies.

It's not just Beijing. Canada has recently made changes to rare earth exports too. America has a double whammy on rare earths.

Well stop those absurd sanctions against Russia and it will solve part of the problem. If not, well face it. And other countries that are smarter and ignoring the absurd american or european policies, are freely buying russian rare earth and oil and are prospering and will win the race. Stop those sanctions against Russia and make sure that Europe does same. Because if Europe does prosper,. so will America. If Europe goes bankrupt, America will follow. That's how globalisation works. Trump should be smart and put 100% trade tax on any country that maintains the useless embargo and sanctions against the Russkys. Ukraine is as corrupt as Russia but Ukraine does not have all the cheap gas so they would plainly need to step back in line and case closed.

1 minute ago, Sigmund said:

Well stop those absurd sanctions against Russia and it will solve part of the problem. If not, well face it. And other countries that are smarter and ignoring the absurd american or european policies, are freely buying russian rare earth and oil and are prospering and will win the race. Stop those sanctions against Russia and make sure that Europe does same. Because if Europe does prosper,. so will America. If Europe goes bankrupt, America will follow. That's how globalisation works. Trump should be smart and put 100% trade tax on any country that maintains the useless embargo and sanctions against the Russkys. Ukraine is as corrupt as Russia but Ukraine does not have all the cheap gas so they would plainly need to step back in line and case closed.

Russia is a minor exporter of rare earths. And even if it could send sizable amounts to the USA, there's a bottleneck there, too. The USA has a very limited ability to process rare earths. It's going to take years to remedy that deficiency.

The issue is not just China the issue is Canada too and Trump has done a great job of making enemies out of both of them.

American can no longer be counted upon for reliability and that's not a trade war, that is a trade crisis. America has a superpower credibility crisis. There's a moment during every empire is history when the mirror doesn't recognize the face staring back. August 1st was America's mirror moment, Trump thought he was teaching a lesson, instead Canada gave America a master class in independence. So did China.

 

While America was busy building walls Canada was busy building bridges to Mexico, to Europe, and to Asia. America barked demand for loyalty, Canada quietly earned reliability. Every new home or skyscraper you see, you're looking at Canadian lumber. Not anymore.

 

Here's what the next decade looks like if nothing changes. America drifts into self-imposed isolation as one partner after another quietly diversifies away from US dependence. The EU, Canada and China step into the vacuum, as the predictable hub of trade, dealing with whoever treats them fairly and the US continues its March into  irrelevance, and it's economy starts to shrink, inflation skyrockets, and joblessness becomes a major problem. 

 

The guiding principle that Trump not only ignores but has a complete lack of understanding about, is that America became the greatest economy on the planet due to a lack of tariffs, due to very low import taxes. You don't tax your way out of a deficit, the deficit is there for a reason, ignoring the reason for that deficit and simply focusing on the symptoms is a recipe for disaster. We'll have to call it the Trump economy, we will have to call it the Trump Depression, Trumpflation, and we will have to call Trump the worst and most destructive  president America has ever seen. 

When you are gone or dead Don, very few people will miss you and hundreds of millions will be dancing in the streets.

And then there's Oz, up there with China in rare earths of all kinds, just less developed as yet. But the Japs aren't hanging around, busily snuggling up to the dependable Aussies.

China has an advantage over the rest of the world. It controls roughly 60-70% of mining production but more importantly, it is the world's largest processor of rare earths, controlling approximately 91% of global separation and refining production as of 2024. That means all other countries rely on it to process their rare earths. The USA can't compete, so they basically rely on China to sell them the materials that they intend to use to attack China one day.