Alarm as China's critical mineral export ban takes hold
Alarm over China's stranglehold on critical minerals grew on Tuesday as global automakers joined their US counterparts to complain that restrictions by China on exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures and magnets could cause production delays and outages without a quick solution.
German automakers became the latest to warn that China's export restrictions threaten to shut down production and rattle their local economies, following a similar complaint from an Indian EV maker last week.
China's decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets has upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.
The move underscores China's dominance of the critical mineral industry and is seen as leverage by China in its ongoing trade war with US President Donald Trump.
Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system.
Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors. The suspension has triggered anxiety in corporate boardrooms and nations' capitals — from Tokyo to Washington — as officials scrambled to identify limited alternative options amid fears that production of new automobiles and other items could grind to a halt by summer's end.
"If the situation is not changed quickly, production delays and even production outages can no longer be ruled out," Hildegard Mueller, head of Germany's auto lobby, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Diplomats, automakers and other executives from India, Japan and Europe were urgently seeking meetings with Beijing officials to push for faster approval of rare earth magnet exports, sources told Reuters, as shortages threatened to halt global supply chains.
A business delegation from Japan will visit Beijing in early June to meet the Ministry of Commerce over the curbs and European diplomats from countries with big auto industries have also sought "emergency" meetings with Chinese officials in recent weeks, Reuters reported. Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Recorder
39 minutes ago
- Business Recorder
Trump says Europe will not be able to help much with Iran-Israel war
WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Europe would not be able to help much in the war between Iran and Israel. 'Europe is not going to be able to help with this one,' Trump said. European powers urge Iran to continue US nuclear talks European foreign ministers urged Iran on Friday to engage with Washington over its nuclear program after talks in Geneva aimed at opening negotiations for a new nuclear deal ended with little sign of progress.
Express Tribune
43 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
World Order — exceptionalism, aggression, brazen hypocrisy
The writer heads the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad. He is currently a visiting Research Fellow at Fudan University, Shanghai Listen to article Israel's ongoing reaction to the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and the current ungrounded aggression against Iran only reinforced a bitter reality of the world today — the post-9/11 order rests on brazen aggression and high-handedness of the mighty ones who have arrogated to themselves the right to define conflict, self-defense, evil, terrorism and victimhood. The world order today knows no values, no morality. Nor any consideration for national or international law. Notions such as rule of law and democracy have meanwhile been reduced to fiction. We still hear a lot of western pontification on extremism and terrorism but it's pretty ironic that they don't apply the same yardstick to Israeli actions against women and children in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. On the contrary, all leaders defended this as "Israel's right to self-defence". Donald Trump — as it turns out — simply lied when he vowed to "end wars" and uttered his contempt for the deep state. He had vowed to reform the justice department which he described as "department of injustice" immediately after his reelection. Bit by bit, the G-7 nations have scornfully pulled down the very values they championed for decades by inventing a self-serving exceptionalism in their own favour (read in Israel's favour). Today, they condemn attacks on Israel as criminal but hail the killing of nearly 60,000 Palestinians as self-defence. All G-7 leaders dub Iran as the source of instability but are literally blind to — in fact complicit with - the Israeli actions of first killing Palestinians and now recklessly bombarding Iran to neutralise their nuclear weapons, although a US report, according to CNN, says Iran is far away from making a nuclear bomb. But all that seems just an excuse for crippling Iran and brining about a regime change. On the sidelines of the recent G-7 summit in Alberta, Canada, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spelt out this backhanded approach by the Israel apologists - a virtual endorsement of Israeli actions to date. "This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us — this mullah regime [in Iran] has brought death and destruction to the world," Merz said in an interview with the ZDF broadcaster. In a separate interview with Welt TV, Merz also suggested Israel's attacks on Iran could lead to the demise of the Islamic republic's leadership. "To be honest, I can hardly imagine the mullah regime returning to its old functions," he added, in a glaring display of hypocrisy born off cold-blooded geopolitics. The G-7 essentially endorsed the Israel position on Iran. This way they themselves undercut the very themes they touted for decades as the West's unique selling point (USP) i.e. democracy, rule of law and human rights with the United Nations watching on as a silent, literally irrelevant spectator. Its predecessor — the League of Nations — had ceased to exist on April 20, 1946, largely due to its inability to prevent major global conflicts, particularly World War II. Will the United Nations meet the same fate and drown in irrelevance? For all practical reasons, the UN has been reduced to a debating club of the elite that thrives off the funding from member countries. Israel today is doing what Rudolf Hitler did first against neighbouring European countries and then against Russia. Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 triggered reaction from America, Russia, Britain and France, with the last two mentioned countries declaring war on Germany on September 3, and so began the World War II. Will the murder of nearly 60,000 Palestinians and hundreds of Iranians as well as the potential Chinese and Russian reaction lead to the undoing of the United Nations that has been irrelevant at least since October 2023? Blind exceptionalism — basically another synonym for hypocrisy — is causing a major shift in global politics. Battle lines have further deepened with willful demonisation of Iran and its major supporters thus far i.e. China and Russia. This exceptionalism is stinkingly obnoxious, evident also from a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. "The US, Israel and India blundered by allowing Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons. Repeating the blunder with Iran would be far worse," says an oped by Sadanand Dhume in the Journal's June 18, 2025 issue. Once again, this extremely self-serving argument — as if it were the benevolence of these countries and not relentless efforts of Pakistani scientists and engineers — exposes the exceptionalism being peddled in western official corridors and media houses. Nobody speaks of how Israelis and Indians got hold of nuclear weapons. Neither of them has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but continues to demonise Pakistan's nuclear capability like a crime committed. For the G-7 nations crimes, it seems, against hapless Palestinian women and relentless attacks on Iran are self-defence, while Pakistan's nuclear capability and Iran's nuclear pursuits are an unacceptable offence.
Express Tribune
43 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
Water — not a bargaining chip
Listen to article In international diplomacy, some agreements are too foundational to tamper with. The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), signed in 1960, is one such rare pillar of stability between Pakistan and India. It has stood wars, diplomatic tensions and political changes. Now, however, with an alarming twist, India has unilaterally "held it in abeyance", an expression of elasticity with potentially disastrous results. This is not just a bureaucratic manoeuvre. It is an affront to legal norms, a threat to regional peace, and most gravely, a dangerous suggestion that water, the source of life, is now a bargaining chip. Water is not optional for Pakistan. With more than 80% of its agricultural output relying on the Indus River system, and with already dwindling per capita water availability, any disruption to this flow is an existential threat. The provinces of Punjab and Sindh, which form the country's breadbasket, would face drought, economic paralysis and civil unrest. The consequences would not be limited to economic losses as it would increase inequalities, fuel provincial tensions and make an already unstable situation in the political arena much more complex. The legal basis of the Indian claim of the treaty being in abeyance is weak and the first in history. There is no provision in the IWT allowing a suspension and anyway what due process has been adopted by India in its regard under the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties. Under Article 57 of the Convention, a treaty may be suspended only by mutual consent or within the framework of the treaty itself and neither of these applies here. Article 60 does allow for suspension if a material breach occurs which India has no proof of. In essence, India has invented a legal grey area to justify a political decision. It is a breach not only of treaty obligations but of the basic principles of international law. To turn water into a pressure tactic is to reduce a humanitarian and ecological concern into a geopolitical lever. And once that precedent is set, it becomes dangerously difficult to undo. If water is fair game in power politics, what comes next? This is why the global community cannot afford to stay neutral. South Asia is already one of the most water-stressed regions. Climate change is causing shrinking glaciers and monsoons slackening, and has been speeding the dearth of platforms. The IWT despite all its shortcomings was a paradigm of collaboration on common resources. Such an undermining not only destabilises Pakistan, but also sends the signal to other riparian basins in Africa, Latin America and Central Asia that a unilateral weaponisation of water security is possible. Pakistan must act, but not recklessly. Although there is nothing wrong with citing India's shift as a possible casus belli, it has to first make all the diplomatic attempts. That involves appealing to the Security Council of the UN under Chapter VII of the UN Charter that specifically provides the possibility of interfering when there is a threat of peace. Water, especially when controlled by one nuclear power over another, constitutes exactly that kind of threat. The P5 states must be reminded of their 1998 commitment to intervene if South Asia's stability is at risk. That moment is now. This is not merely about sovereignty or national pride. It is about redefining what should be off-limits in conflict. Civilian water access cannot be a pawn in strategic calculus. Pakistan's response must reinforce this principle, legally and morally. Because if this treaty falls, the damage will go far beyond the Indus Basin — it will corrode the very idea of principled diplomacy. Water sustains life; it should never be used to choke it. The IWT is not a perfect document, but it is a symbol of what diplomacy can achieve even between enemies. To treat it as a bargaining chip is to abandon that legacy and to gamble with peace itself.
