🔹 China bans exports to the United States 🇺🇸 of rare earth elements (REE) gallium, germanium, the metalloid antimony and other key high-tech materials with potential military applications, as a general principle, lashing back at U.S. limits on semiconductor-related exports. China firmly opposes the U.S. abuse of export control measures, illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction against Chinese companies.

🔹 Antimony prices soared 40% yesterday, Dec 04th 2024 after the news broke. China 🇨🇳 imposed export restrictions on REE gallium and germanium in July 2023. China´s updated ban also include exports of super-hard materials, such as diamonds and other synthetic materials that are not compressible and extremely dense.

🔹 The U.S. military depends very heavily on China for the hard to mine 'metalloid element' antimony. The U.S. has no domestic mine ⛏️. Antimony is used to produce night vision goggles, armor-piercing bullets, explosives and nuclear weapons. China sits on reserves of over 145,000 tonnes. In 2nd is Canada 🇨🇦 with 7,000 metric tonnes. Russia 🇷🇺sits in 3rd with 6,500 metric tonnes.

🔹 Germanium is used in fiber optic products and military applications due to it being transparent to infrared radiation. Gallium is used for radio frequency chips for mobile phones and satellite 📡 communication. China produces 60% of the world's germanium and 80% of gallium. Both metals are byproducts from processing other commodities such as coal and bauxite. China has the largest portion of gallium reserves at 68% & accounted for 98% of worldwide primary low-purity gallium production in 2022.

Photo Source: Prashant Garg - Each node is a product. Size of node based on how "important" or "central" product is in international trade. Blue nodes are capital goods, silver are intermediates and green are final consumption good.