About how Ukrainian minerals can aid end U.S. economical dependence on China. How competition with China drives US politics.
Trump pursues uncommon and critical minerals of Ukraine to strengthen its leverage in limiting Chinese exports. However, for the US, ending dependence on China can be a long-term process.
U.S. president Donald Trump reaches for $500 billion (EUR 477 billion) uncommon and critical minerals of Ukraine in peace negotiations to compensate American military aid to Ukraine during the war. More importantly, the safeguarding of these resources is in line with its strategical plan to rebalance the US's global trading position, peculiarly with China. However, peace talks stay in stalemate due to the fact that the U.S. decided to halt all military assistance to Ukraine after a stormy conversation between Trump and the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski.
Trump has been devoted since its first word to "re-making America great", imposing duties on China to defend the home manufacturing sector. However, given the well established Chinese supply chain strategy and production infrastructure, The United States faces challenges to reverse trade relations, in peculiar due to China's dependence on supply of key minerals for its high-tech industry.
This makes peace talks a key turning point in Trump's tariff plan, which will let it to tighten its anti-export measures from China.
To what degree does the United States respond to key minerals from China?
The US president doubled import duties on Chinese goods to 20%, while presently on the 2 largest trading partners charged 25% of the duty. any may wonder why Trump did not impose more aggressive duties on China, specified as those on Mexico and Canada.
The United States relies heavy on the supply of key minerals by China, which are essential resources for the production of electrical equipment, battery powered cars, aircraft and defence equipment.
According to TD Economics China dominates the global production of more than half of the 50 critical minerals defined by the US government in 2022. In addition, China has almost a monopoly on refining capacity, processing 90% of uncommon earth elements. According to many sources, between 2020 and 2023 Washington imported 70% of its uncommon earth metals from China. This makes securing an alternate origin from Ukraine a key component of Trump's strategical plan.
In December 2024, China introduced a ban on exports and restrictions on respective key minerals to the US, after the day before the US introduced fresh restrictions on exports of chips to China. Beijing stopped exports of antimony, gallium, germanium and super hard materials and tightened the rules on shipping graphite products to Washington. Gal is simply a reliable and durable component utilized in the defence industry, while graphite is essential for the production of electrical vehicles and atomic reactors.
How could a mineral deal with Ukraine benefit the US?
The State Agency for the Ukrainian Geological Service estimates that around 5% of the world's key natural materials are located in Ukraine, including millions of tons of graphite reserves, 1 3rd of European lithium deposits and 7% of European titanium supply. The country besides has crucial reserves of key metals specified as copper, zinc, silver, nickel and cobalt. In Ukraine, besides uncommon earth metallic was found, which consists of 17 elements.
However, Russia may have occupied any of the main sites of Ukrainian mines and uncommon earth deposits since the outbreak of the war in 2022. Furthermore, the deficiency of investment in Ukraine may prevent this country from producing Trump, peculiarly in terms of refining capacity.
Industry experts besides question whether Ukraine actually has reserves of uncommon earth metals that Trump expects.
According to Argus Media, an independent energy and commodity investigation firm, global estimates of uncommon earth metals scope from $4 billion (€3.8 billion) to $12.5 billion (12 billion). This makes it hard to justify the valuation of Ukrainian mineral reserves of $500 billion (EUR 477 billion).
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