China announced Tuesday it is banning exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, 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.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry announced the move after the Washington expanded its list of Chinese companies subject to export controls on computer chip-making equipment, software and high-bandwidth memory chips. Such chips are needed for advanced applications.
The ratcheting up of trade restrictions comes as President-elect Donald Trump has been threatening to sharply raise tariffs on imports from China and other countries, potentially intensifyi
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA240992
Can’t see more really.
Antimony applications
Antimony is a strategic critical mineral that is used in all manner of military applications, including the manufacture of armor piercing bullets, night vision goggles, infrared sensors, precision optics, laser sighting, explosive formulations, hardened lead for bullets and shrapnel, ammunition primers, tracer ammunition, nuclear weapons and production, tritium production, flares, military clothing, and communication equipment.
Hope that helps.
My takeaway is that since MILITARY INTEREST is involved, these materials will be exempt from the tariff.
It doesn’t matter if there is a tariff on these materials or not when China refuses to sell them to the US.
People really don’t understand what tariffs are.
And apparently they don’t understand what “ban exports to the US” means.
Language is hard, isn’t it?
Especially for dem monolinguals.
Who do you think pockets the tariff? It would just be the government passing money from one hand to the other.
This is China banning the export of it’s rare metals to the US. We’re not even going to notice it. We have these available to us from other sources and domestic mining.
Antimony is rough, it’s only found in China and Russia and it’s critical to armor piercing rounds and all kinds of ammo. You can still make stuff without it but the ammo is inferior.
Antimony comes from Stibnite and is available in Europe and Canada. We’re not running out of that any time soon.
It’s a free, unclassified, pdf from a .mil. Treat it like an academic study and scroll to the conclusion. The takeaway is that unless we’ve let something slide since 1989 we produce enough Germanium for our own use and could scale it up properly in a large war scenario. And a quick check shows the companies they mention either still in operation or sold off in a bankruptcy and still in operation.
I’m not American nor am I commenting on what China’s decision means.
I simply shared some info on what these are used for.