China has near global monopolies on these exports, accounting for 98% of global gallium production, 93% of germanium production, and 49% of antimony production.
Not sure if this will help prevent war or accelerate war.
If I gather anything from the more knowledgable people in the comments it is that the US needn’t worry, because these resources aren’t just exported by China, but also by Russia and no one else in the world. So they just need to cash in those years of Russian goodwill they’ve built up and this shouldn’t be a problem.
Well 2/3 of the comments here a jokes barely talking about the issue so idk.
Imo is if American tariffs and sanctions didn’t work back in 2022 why should it work for anyone else? China isn’t about to police world trade flows in order to make sure these exports wont end up in the US. In practical terms this is just incentivizing the black market supply for it. You should rather temper your expectations that this will actualy have a meaningful long term effect at all.
Yes NATO artillery stocks are low but clearly the US doesn’t give a fuck about it given the Ukrainian missile escalation this recently so its one of those things that technicaly ought to matter but in reality doesn’t at all. Yeah Ukraine is even more assured to not get more supplies and that changes nothing given they lost this war years ago already.
I think this is an apples and oranges situation. China is not sanctioning or tariffing, they are banning exports of specific items for industries that their government is entirely in control of. The US can say tarrifs this and sanctions that but the private companies can do whatever they want, the US has no real power over them. China has unilateral control over these minerals and nearly every nation that trades with them has a strong incentive to not only follow whatever boundaries China sets for the minerals, but many of these nations are probably also happy to to comply because they don’t have good relationships with the US either. If any one is middle manning them to the US, China is approving it, and I’d bet that if they say not to, it won’t happen.
If anything I’d be worried about nations like Bolivia who also have some of these metals because the US could be more incentivized to destabilize them for mineral access.
Are you telling me that being blindly antagonistic in every corner of the globe simultaneously actually has consequences? Because that sounds like Russian disinformation.
No, it will be fine. Considering how much of the Earth’s surface is taken up by Israel and Taiwan I’m sure there is an endless supply of rare earth minerals to go around.
I honestly believe it is the intent of the US to go nuclear and destroy the advanced economies of the world to recreate the post world war 2 order where the rest of the world is in ruins except their shining city on a hill
DPRK will get trigger happy with their nukes if the US gets too close to doing this
These all seem very strategically important. I’m worried that this is another sign of how likely world war III is at the moment.
so we’re locked in for WW3 then?
I should start writing programs for the 6502 since that’s all we’ll be able to afford here at this rate /hj
You love to see it
Antimony is a rare earth mineral needed for the production of all modern artillery shells. The US has no antimony mines. China controls its extraction and owns like 90% of the mines in Hunan province. Other mines are located in Russia and South Africa. Bolivia is the second highest producer behind China. Pretty much no other nation produces it. That’s it. Four countries.
While Antimony is certainly rare (contextually) and an earth mineral, using those terms are incorrect in the greater sense - One shouldn’t confuse it (as another reply did) for a ‘rare-earth metal’ or rare-earth element (REE) which is a wholly different group of elements with geo-political contexts.
Antimony is a metalloid (not quite a metal) and is about as scarce as silver, tin and iodine in the Earth’s crust.
Bolivia is the second highest producer behind China
Aw fuck. Looks like we’ll start seeing mass protests in Santa Cruz
: 2025 surprise is 
and 
invading Bolivia to seize antimony productionYeah they surely will try again something.
The US national stock pile is set to be depleted in 2025.
It’s fucking crazy such a simple weapon hasn’t been simplified in its supply chain demand for over 100 years. Antimony is literally used to harden the metal casings of the shells. That’s fucking it. Seriously. That’s fucking it. For 100 years the greatest most capitalisticalist empire on earth couldn’t figure out how to more sustainably harden artillery shells without using a rare earth metal.
most capitalisticalist
I think that answers the question. The US has been perfectly fine exploiting other countries to get it for that amount of time and thus has no reason to do anything else
Ironically this isn’t the first time it’s had this problem. Japan stopped giving it to them around WW2.
Antimony is a rare earth mineral needed for the production of all modern artillery shells.
looked this up to find out what it goes into and apparently it is the best hardener for alloying lead
MoA on this
Mirror Action - China To Block ‘Dual Use’ Exports To U.S. War Mongers | Moon of Alabama
this post has been certified brainworm-free by trans-comrade-loving hexbear patriots ✅
I don’t know if it’s obvious to folks here or not but these are common for doping silicon chips so they can work as computers. Similarly useful for solar panels.
If US chip companies don’t have substantial backup stocks they’re screwed.
Really cool and good how we as a country have imperial boomerang’ed so hard that this country is choosing to selectively cherry-pick to have all the bad of the free-market with none of the good.
Economics is when you have blind faith cult adherence to the money line, right?
thats definitely the US econ department
I mean, yes, basically.
If the tariffs on solar panels are any indication, this is just going to be an economic stimulus for China’s neighbors, who will be able to sell Chinese minerals to the US at what I at least hope will be a generous markup.
That’s exactly what is going to happen lmao the U.S. acts like it can do to China what it does to Cuba. Too late for that no buddy, you sent all of your production there!
It’s like I’m taking crazy pills! Why are you fucking with our manufacture base?! We have no alternative!! We need to replace them before we fuck with them.
Never interrupt your enemy while they are in the process of making a mistake
Same thing happened with honey. Suddenly Vietnam’s honey exports magically increased to more than their domestic production. Of course nobody cared because it’s all theater.
Now watch
invade some random African Country which has these resources.They dont export these resources. Anitmony can be found in primarily in Russia, but also Myanmar & Bolivia (and Australia), Gallium in Ukraine/Russia, Slovakia as well as the UK lol, and Germanium in Russia and Northumberland
Gallium in Ukraine/Russia, Slovakia as well as the UK lol, and Germanium in Russia and Northumberland
Whoever named these needs to check a map next time!
Australia
No need to fear, Americans, we are as always standing ready to be your imperial lapdog
I just posted this. Antimony is not extracted in any real significant numbers outside of Russia, South Africa, Bolvia, and China. China alone produces over 90% of it. Hunan province is the jackpot on the stuff. Bolivia is the second biggest producer at just under 5%. Russia and South Africa produce about 1-2%. That’s it. Some countries have strategic stores of it and some have a small mine here or there that is used purely for themselves because it is all they have. The US has 0 antimony mines currently. The US could waive environmental concerns and heavily subsidize a mine or two but it won’t meet the needs of the military to produce the munitions which require it, like artillery shells.
not doubting you, but for the sake of sourcing can i get some links for this
and beyond that, as far as I know it takes several years to get a mine up and running. so even then you are looking at a few years of the empire not producing any shells or at least producing them at insane cost markups
Propably not as much a problem as one would think. The US is aiming for China next, that will be mostly a sea and air war. No conventional artillery needed.
Sounds like they’ll have to give up on Ukraine though.
That’s where the European vassals come in. Western Ukraine will propably get de-facto occupied by them while the east is dropped. Keeps the conflict frozen, the euros paying, Russia occupied and the US free for fresh warcrimes.
In other words, the US can still get those materials via their colonies in europe and australia.
The hermit kingdom of America baby let’s keep the isolation going!
So this means we’ll stop being an empire right?
It’s not what they expect, but yes
