President-elect Donald Trump’s pre-emptive tariff threat several weeks ago against the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, among others) who want to usurp the U.S. dollar as the global currency was a prescient and powerful move. But as night follows day, a BRICS leader – China – immediately counter-punched: denying U.S. access to several critical minerals that America needs for national defense but now largely imports from BRICS countries.
On New Year’s Day, China upped the ante. It added 28 U.S. defense industry companies to its export control list, which restricts the export to these companies of ‘dual use’ materials that have both commercial and defense uses.
What does this mean? If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses this to justify banning the export of components that contain critical materials such as rare earth permanent magnets – which I believe they will do – then the long-feared critical minerals war has begun. This was predicted on the pages of FoxNews.com in early 2023.
China launched these attacks ostensibly in response to actions taken by the Biden administration. But China knows that throwing a critical minerals hook to the U.S. military serves several strategic goals that benefit both China and the BRICS cabal:
It directly weakens U.S. national security without having to fire a shot.It is a strong response to U.S. export restrictions without engaging in a lose-lose fight against America’s tariff master.It should increase revenue to BRICs-based minerals producers, weaken global competitors, and potentially exacerbate inflationary pressures in the U.S.It enables China and its BRICs allies to get into the ring with an opponent – the U.S. – that has in recent decades tied both hands behind its back in terms of critical minerals production.
