While Trump has been receiving plaudits for his breakthrough on the Gaza War, his actions on China are more and more erratic, reflecting, perhaps, a behind-the-scenes tug-of-war between the China hawks in his administration and the pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) globalists on Wall Street, who are desperate to keep open the flow of American investment into the communist nation. On October 9, for example, China unexpectedly tightened export controls over critical rare earths, critical minerals essential to modern electronics, military weaponry, and a host of other applications, the global supplies of which are dominated by Chinese production.
This state of affairs has come about not because rare earths aren’t available in North America, but because the United States has deliberately hamstrung domestic extraction for decades in the name of environmental conservation — even as China, which has no such inhibitions, has massively increased exploration and extraction. China’s latest move, designed to remind the United States of how dependent it has become on Chinese largesse, came just weeks before Trump’s scheduled meeting with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the upcoming APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in South Korea. The ever-volatile Trump immediately fired off an angry anti-China screed on Truth Social threatening anew to impose heavy retaliatory tariffs on China (the only major trading partner that has so far been spared tariff hikes, incidentally):
It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them. This affects ALL Countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.
Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the U.S.A., and not other Nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying. Also on November 1st, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.
It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Business as Usual
The market response was immediate and negative, with cryptocurrencies especially hard hit. And by October 13, Trump had already backed away from his latest threat, assuring everyone that everything with China was going to be fine, praising Chinese dictator Xi Jinping as a great leader and tough negotiator, and generally reassuring the captains of industry and finance that he wasn’t going to kill the golden Chinese goose. Business as usual, in other words. China, by contrast, has been absolutely consistent in its behavior, with its military ramming another Philippine boat in international waters a few days ago, and aggressive preparations for war against the United States and Taiwan continuing apace — even as domestic oppression in response to widespread discontent over the collapsing economy continues to ramp up.
Whether or not there is any truth to recent rumors about Xi suffering a stroke or having lost some power in the run-up to the CCP’s Fourth Plenary Session next week, it is clear that the nature of the communist beast remains unchanged — a fact that Trump and his team had better come to terms with sooner rather than later. Here at The New American we have been for more than a decade sounding the alarm on our politicians’ (Republican and Democratic) suicidal policies with regard to rare earth-element mining restrictions, especially as it concerns giving China a global monopoly on these essential minerals. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
