In an interview with Laura Ingraham of FOX News, President Donald Trump claimed “nobody knows what a magnet is.”
Here is the complete word salad. Media are complicit in journalistic malpractice because they do not report full quotes like these. They are not the exception; they are the rule.
President Xi was willing to do the rare earth thing, that’s magnets. Now, nobody knows what a magnet is. If you don’t have a magnet, you don’t make a car. You don’t make a computer. You don’t make televisions and radios and all the other things — you don’t make anything. It’s a 30-year effort to monopolize a very important thing. Now, within two years, we’ll have magnets, all the magnets we want, but we don’t. Because of tariffs, I called, I said, “Listen, here’s the story. You’re going to play the magnet. I’m going to play the tariff on you.” And for national security purposes, I raised the tariff by 100% over and above what they were paying, which was 55. So, he was at 155%. Within 10 minutes, I got a call, “We’d like to meet,” and we settled it out and we made a wonderful deal, great deal for our country (emphasis added).
Note: the common magnet is not used to make computers or mobile phones. Industrial magnets include rare earth magnets, ceramic (ferrite) magnets, electromagnets or alnico magnets.
The issue is not magnets. The issue is access to rare earth elements (REE). And yes, most people probably do not know what rare earth elements are. They are a set of 17 soft heavy metals that are considered “rare” because they are “difficult to isolate and purify.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that China produces about 61% of the world’s REE (270,000 metric tons). It has a monopoly on rare earth magnets, processing about 92% of them.
In comparison, the US produces 45,000 metric tons of REE:
Rare earths supply in the US currently comes only from the Mountain Pass mine in California, which is owned by MP Materials (NYSE:MP). Mountain Pass is producing high-purity neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) oxide, a key material for high-strength neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets.
RRE are also used in consumer electronics like smartphones and computers as well as industrial electronics such as capacitors and fluorescent lamps.
China is adamant that its magnets not be shipped to U.S. military suppliers, which could pose issues for firms like Boeing that have both domestic and military divisions.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com