As China could close the auto factories around the world

China’s domination of the global supply chain begins to harm the carmakers.

On April 4, the country stopped exports of the mineral resources called “Heavy Elements Rare Land” and it sent a global car industry.

Rare land is there Class with 17 items Which have become indispensable in all types of applications – everything, from fighters and submarines, to smartphones and appliances. You can Even find them in sports equipment like tennis rackets and baseball bits.

Of course, they are also necessary for a modern car. The gas -burning vehicles use them to filter the pollution through the car converter. Electric vehicles use them in engines and batteries.

“Rare lands are really important, not just electric vehicles,” said Grekelin Basquera, director of the Security Program Critical Fighting at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They are in your safety belt, rudders, different parts of electric components. You are not going to produce a car without rare land.”

Rare land is divided into additional categories based on their atomic weight. Light rare land is easier in the source. China is absolutely monopolized. China controls about 70% of the world’s rare land. But where it really dominates, it is in processing.

The name “elements of rare land” is a little misleading – the elements themselves are not so rare. What makes them “rare” is a complex and complex process of separating them from the rock in which they are built and apart. China controls about 90% of the world’s rare land processing and has a complete monopoly on the processing of heavy rare land.

At least since 2023, China delayed several key important minerals that it provides for the world, Basqueran said.

However, exports on April 4 were shocked by the automotive world.

“It came out nowhere,” said Dan Hershe, director of AlixPartners. “Nobody had time to respond to it. I mean that within a few weeks all the material in the pipeline came out.”

European automakers Close factories. Freod needed Production Products Its popular Explorer SUV.

This month, China has started to allow some access to companies that supply details to some automakers. And this week Trump administration said This has reached a transaction on the rare earthen and magnetic deliveries in the USA

However, it is unclear how durable these deals will be.

“We haven’t left the forest yet,” Basqueran said. “There is great instability in the US-China relations between tariffs and mineral restrictions. We have seen that China has increased restrictions over two years. Rare land is just the latest.”

There are long -term solutions when China is again disconnected: for example, processing, developing other sources and innovations. This crisis can even push the branch to take action that reduces China’s dependence.

But this rare land crisis is only the last in a number of supplies over the past few years. Hearsch said it probably worsened.

“Today it is rare land,” Hershe said. “But tomorrow it may and will be something else, which we may not think that perhaps not even so valuable and suddenly it will be.”

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