by Dr Rahim Said
While Donald Trump was busy slapping tariffs on Chinese imports to “protect American jobs,” China responded not with more tariffs—but with scalpel-sharp precision aimed straight at America’s industrial jugular.
In April 2025, Beijing didn’t huff and puff. It simply tightened its grip on five obscure-sounding but absolutely indispensable materials: dysprosium, terbium, tungsten, indium, and yttrium.
For most Americans, these names mean nothing. But for your electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar panels, and yes—fighter jets—they’re as essential as oxygen. China didn’t outright ban their export. They just added a layer of “export licensing” so bureaucratically impenetrable and politically selective, it’s the equivalent of telling the U.S. to take a number and wait in line, outside.
Let’s be brutally honest: America had this coming. For decades, warnings were issued. Dependency ratios were calculated. National stockpile gaps were mapped out in policy reports. But Washington outsourced, deregulated, and deluded itself into thinking that critical minerals would always be as abundant as breakfast cereal.
Now, those minerals are being rationed by a country that understands global leverage the way a tiger understands a sheep.
Without dysprosium and terbium, America’s high-performance magnets for EV motors and guided missiles are useless.
Without tungsten, bullets don’t pierce, chips don’t connect, and machines don’t machine.
Without indium, your screen stays dark and your 5G turns to 3G. And without yttrium, jet engines overheat and laser-guided munitions lose their guidance. This isn’t trade drama—it’s industrial strangulation.
Trump’s tariffs were meant to look tough. But toughness means nothing if your supply chain can’t deliver. It’s like banning your plumber from entering the house and then complaining your pipes are leaking.
China’s move is more than retaliation—it’s a wake-up call. If America wants to regain control of its destiny, it needs to rebuild its critical minerals infrastructure, fast. That means mining, refining, recycling, and innovating—not in five years, but over the next 20. It also means re-engaging allies, not alienating them with blanket tariffs and trade war theatre.
Until then, the U.S. is stuck in a dangerous new reality: you can’t tariff your way to national security if you’ve already outsourced your spine.
WE