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Originally Posted by Finnster
IDK what the detail of the bill is, but can this actually do anything? From what I know, China has nearly all the available rare earth metals and is not shy about using that to its advantage, as well as having its own terrible inflation problem (from years of artificially keeping their currency low.)
Perhaps now are we just seeing a more "real" price for these items than we are used to (discounting the market manipulation)?
Glad I stocked up during last year's sale
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China has about 30% of the world rare earth supply. The USA has about 18%, but doesn't produce (because all the producers shutdown due to extremely low prices from China 3-4 years ago...)
The metal used in the magnets (neodymium) isn't very rare -- it's more abundant than lead, and about as abundant as copper. It's just that all the producers around the world stopped production because they couldn't make any profit with China selling the metals so cheaply.
They are all scrambling to reopen mining on rare earths now that the prices have risen so high, but it takes a significant amount of time (1-2 years or longer) to reopen the old mines and production facilities.