To discuss, we have Farrell Gregory, a researcher at the Foundation for American Innovation and winner of ChinaTalk’s Economic Security essay competition, and Joris Teer, a policy analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies who authored Beijing’s critical raw material weapon – and how to dismantle it. Co-hosting is ChinaTalk’s Aqib Zakaria. Our conversation covers... China’s critical mineral weapon — How Beijing turned its dominance over rare earths into a tool of economic coercion and why the West is struggling to respond. 25 minerals that actually matter — Why policymakers should focus on the specific materials China can weaponize rather than spreading resources across broad critical mineral lists. Why subsidies alone won’t fix the problem — How China’s industrial policy, overcapacity, and ability to flood markets make it nearly impossible for Western supply chains to compete without coordinated action. Reshoring the industrial base — The tradeoffs behind rebuilding domestic capacity: higher end-product costs, environmental NIMBYism, skilled labor shortages, and the need for deeper US-European cooperation. The next resource race — How defense, AI, robotics, and energy demand are intensifying competition for critical materials and what the future of allied industrial power might look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rare Earths: What is To Be Done?

ChinaTalk

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** ChinaTalk

## Participants

- **Jordan Schneider** (ChinaTalk)
- **Farrell Gregory** (Foundation for American Innovation)
- **Joris Teer** (EU Institute for Security Studies)

## Transcript

Rare Earths, What Is To Be Done, to discuss we have a winner of ChinaTalk's economic security essay competition, Feral Gregory of FAI, as well as for the European perspective, we have Yoris Deer, who is a policy analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies and has written a recent paper entitled Beijing's Critical Raw Material Weapon and How to Dismantle It.

We will link both Feral's essay as well as Yoris's in the show notes. Akub of ChinaTalk will be co-hosting. Welcome, everyone. Great to be here, Jordan. Yeah, thank you for having us. All right. So we're going to spend most of this show talking about solutions, but I think it is important to define the problem statement. Yoris, why don't you open with what happened over the last 12 months and why it requires,

liberal democracies to do something about it? Yeah. So after foreshadowing for a very long time that China might use this critical raw material weapon, so squeezing the supply of really all of the key materials that we need for our defense industries, for our energy grid, for our communication systems, et cetera, et cetera. It finally did so in April, and it didn't just do so against the United States in response to the tariffs and in response to what appear to be far more extreme curbs on ASML,

semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports to China looming in May. Now, it didn't just curb it to the United States. It curbed the supplies very sharply to almost all countries. And so we were in a bind. And at the time, it really seemed like we might enter rare earth Armageddon, which the International Energy Agency sort of defines as 1.5 trillion in terms of costs just for the EU alone, if we just don't get our permanent magnets anymore.

While China reversed the dial, it then increased exports again of not just rare earths, but other critical raw materials, but at artificially low levels under strict conditions that are completely averse to our interests and completely in China's interest. And it's now very aggressively playing out that leverage. Farrell, anything you want to add to the press either? Yeah, sure.

And so what, let's start on the Brussels and European capital side. What's been done so far? Or what's the response been and what's been done so far? Yeah, Brussels has been thinking about this for a long time. And already in the context of the energy transition, the topic of critical raw materials became quite prominent because everyone realized, well, without the materials, you can't do your wind turbines, especially rare earth intensive, you can't do your EVs also rare earth intensive.

The batteries need to come from cobalt, of course. So a lot of reports were written. Then in 2023, there was a critical raw material act setting specific goals for dome...

Rare Earths: What is To Be Done?

Transcript

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Rare Earths: What is To Be Done?

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.