Trump Secures Rare Earths Deal While China Limits… Everything Else
The mainstream narrative frames this pact as a necessary response to China's 'weaponization' of rare earth minerals. What they omit is the United States' own historical playbook of resource acquisition, often under less-than-democratic pretenses. Remember Uncle Sam's long history of destabilizing governments in resource-rich nations (like Iran in '53, Chile in '73, or numerous coups across Africa
for diamonds, oil, and uranium) to secure favorable deals? Suddenly, China 'limiting exports' sounds less like an unprecedented act of aggression and more like a nation asserting its sovereign control over resources it spent decades developing. So, Washington frets about China's 'monopoly' on rare earths, yet celebrates securing its own preferential access. How many times will we see the US
condemn a foreign power for adopting tactics the US perfected? It's almost as if 'free markets' are only truly free when they benefit American interests, and 'strategic competition' is just a fancy term for 'we want what you have, and we think we deserve it more.'