r/worldnews • u/Significant-Colour • 1d ago

China strikes back at Trump with 34 percent tariff — bans rare earth exports to the U.S.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/china-strikes-back-on-trump-tariffs-bans-rare-earth-exports-to-the-u-s
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u/LawabidingKhajiit 1d ago

they still would be way MORE EXPENSIVE then from China...

And that's the magic of tariffs! If you can't match the competition's prices, just have your buddy in charge artificially inflate theirs enough that you can undercut them and still keep a stupid profit margin. Everybody wins! Except everyone downstream in the production chain, but fuck em, my number is bigger! Yes it's worth comparatively less, but what does that matter when you have more than you could ever spend already, and the number is really just for bragging points on the golf course.

That's the bit that really sickens me; the mega rich don't do this stuff to make their lives better-that would be reprehensible but at least a little understandable with a selfish enough mindset; no, they are ruining people's lives entirely for bragging rights.

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u/Gwennifer 1d ago

China has a generational lead on heavy metal extraction & workings. It wouldn't just be more expensive, we'd be unable to extract nearly as much as China could from the same ore.

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u/LawabidingKhajiit 1d ago

My good man, scarcity means we can charge even more! We don't need efficiency when the government will artifically inflate the competiton's prices to keep them higher than ours. So we'll be wasting some resources, pah, that's a problem for the next CEO, or maybe the one after him.

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u/_Middlefinger_ 1d ago

The problem is the price is only going up for the US. The rest of the world is ganging up on the US and is moving closer. Prices outside the US may even drop for a time due to reduced US demand.

The Trump admin thought the US was the centre of the universe and that everyone would just fall in line. They were wrong.

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u/LawabidingKhajiit 1d ago

Being outside the US, I'd love to see prices dropping. Doubt it'll happen though; tech companies especially love $=£ pricing so they'll probably keep it and cash in.