China willing to threaten world by manipulating key resources

 The Lid:

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The foreign policy lesson that SHOULD have been learned more than any other during the Pandemic is the inherent danger to being dependent on China for any key resource. They aren’t above disrupting those supply lines (or threatening to hold the hostage) when it suits them to do so.

We saw it with China buying up a crapton of PPE before the world had any real sense of what we were dealing with concerning this new virus. We saw it when we realized so much of our critical pharmaceutical manufacturing originated in China. Now we see it in components critical to technology.

President Trump saw this as a potential American vulnerability…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order declaring a national emergency in the mining industry, aimed at boosting domestic production of rare earth minerals critical for military technologies while reducing the country’s dependence on China.

Trump ordered his Cabinet secretaries to study the matter, with an eye toward government grants for production equipment, as well as tariffs, quotas or other import restrictions against China and other non-market foreign adversaries

Particularly concerning our national defense…

The order states that the county’s “undue reliance on critical minerals, in processed or unprocessed form, from foreign adversaries constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

Rare earth elements are a group of 17 minerals critical to the defense industry’s manufacturing of missiles and munitions, hypersonic weapons, and radiation-hardened electronics — as well as consumer electronics like cellphones. The Trump administration previously identified 35 minerals as both essential and whose supplies are vulnerable to disruption.

The U.S. imports 80 percent of these elements directly from China, with portions of the remainder indirectly sourced from China through other countries, according to the order.

How does that relate to today?

As just one ‘for instance, Taiwan is in the news. Here’s a headline published just days after Joe’s Inauguration…

BBC: China warns Taiwan independence ‘means war’ as US pledges support

That ties directly into the following report:

Trump indicated that China would not be afraid to use America’s dependence on its rare-earth minerals as leverage in a trade war. The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party-run publication, even said as much in May 2019.

According to the Global Times, a spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission of China said, “If any country wants to use products made of China’s rare earth exports to contain China’s development, the Chinese people would not be happy with that.”

“Industry insiders said that the comment, in a rare case, sends an implicit signal that China does not hesitate using rare earths as a weapon against the US amid the escalating trade war and US containment of Huawei,” the state media outlet reported.

…In addition, China could potentially withhold these materials in a situation where the United States or other countries need to protect themselves against China.

Bloomberg also reported that China is also “exploring a ban on rare earths as part of its sanctions on some individual companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp., which violated China’s core interest over arms sale to Taiwan,” according to its unnamed source.

That is an incredibly worrisome statement. As the United States tries to help Taiwan fight against an authoritarian nation, that nation itself has the power to stop its neighbor from acquiring certain weapons.

 Joe wanted the prestige and respect that came with sitting in the Big Chair. Even before he won the election, Tony Bobulinski, a partner of Hunter’s in his China deal and the CEO of his China company, explained that Hunter’s father Biden was “the big guy,” involved and was an “eager participant in a family scheme to make millions of dollars by partnering with a shady Chinese Communist firm.”

And now, as President, China Joe is allowing the CCP to eat our lunch–So far, it seems that he’s not up to the responsibilities that come with being commander-in-chief. As President, Trump saw China as a threat, trying to take advantage of America and the entire Western world. Biden believes that the CCP is just misunderstood. He won’t criticize its massacres because “Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.”

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Biden appears to be making the US more dependent on China's rare earth minerals by making war on US domestic energy production.  The switch to green energy plays into China's hand and makes the US more dependent on their rare earth production.  His attack on the Keystone XL pipeline plays into that hand.