this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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85% of the global supply of Tungsten is China.
It's used in all AP bullets.
It's used in all AP tank shells.
It's used in all Howitzer artillery shells.
It's used in all of america's big bombs being dropped in Israel.
This is used in all of America's weapons given to Ukraine. They are literally not producing artillery shells right now because they do not have materials and can not source materials elsewhere in the world for the quantity of production they need to maintain their wars.
They simply can not maintain a trade war while maintaining actual war. One or the other has to stop.
The US produces 0 Tungsten.
When someone becomes so invested in finance they forget that money is only valuable in its relationship to real things.
I like to call it GDP-brain
Value is created by entrepreneurs and investors, you see.
China also controls the vast majority of rare earth element (REE) processing and put export controls on several heavy REEs in response to the tariffs. From a department of war think tank:
Do not, my friends, become addicted to rare earths. They will take hold of you, and you will resent their absence!
Tbh the rare earths thing is overstated.
The very large fraction of rare earth imports are used to make magnets for stuff like lawn mower motors. Total imports of rare earths are in the hundreds of millions.
Actually peanuts and there are other sources for them that are uneconomical compared to china’s production but if push came to shove the US could easily handle rare earths increasing in price and rarity by an order of magnitude without anyone really noticing.
The real problem would be building the refinement capacity which could easily take years, but critical industries that truly rely on rare earths can survive on stockpiles for years as well.
Rare earths are not a trump card.
Makes sense. I'll take your word for it. I don't know that industry.
I was citing a US foreign policy-friendly think tank (Center for Strategic and International Studies) that's citing a global material supply chain analysis group (Project Blue) assuming they would be adversarial to China and willing to sound the alarm. Sounds like it doesn't matter then.
Like it’s not nothing but it’s not going to bring the USA to its knees. It might make a few very specific industries non-competitive.
Taking an L to get that W
This makes sense. But what is China's strategy? Just sell them all the Tungsten they want if they remove tariffs? Surely they know US is trying to start a war with them
But the US doesn't have the kind of centralised strategy or funds to stockpile enough anything to sustain an actual war with China.
By gleefully engaging in mercantile trade, China has made the US dependent upon it, and the US just can't start a war it could begin to win. Nor would the bourgeois class want to tolerate it for long because of how much it cuts into their own profits (which is clearly why they're giving up on tariffs now).
If the US actually tries to start a war everyone is fucked because nukes will fly and end all civilisation. Their longterm strategy is to build Europe-MiddleEast-Asia-Africa into one interconnected landmass of infrastructure in such a way that cooperation is most beneficial and to push the US out through support of sovereignty. Their short term strategy is to be such a large productive force that others are too dependent upon them to really fight it.
As for global communism. They do not have global revolutionary strategy. That's up to socialists in each of their own countries i suspect as it conflicts with ensuring their support for national sovereignty against US dominion is authentic.