The US trade deal with China seeks to resolve a major sticking point of their ongoing trade war: rare-earth minerals.
Despite multiple rounds of talks with US trade negotiators over the past several months, China continued to slow-walk promises to the Trump administration that it would free up crucial rare-earth metals, and earlier guarantees of expedited rare-earth licenses to US companies never materialized. Beijing even tightened earlier this month its controls by massively expanding its restrictions..
Under Thursday’s deal, China agreed to roll back those newly imposed rules, though the initial restrictions unveiled in April appear to remain in place.
The tussle over rare earths precedes the current administration; China for years has built up near-total control of the minerals as part of its wider industrial policy.
Here’s what you need to know about rare earths.
Continue reading the complete article on the original source
