Washington
Beijing Calls Washington’s Bluff on Strategic Metals
January 2, 2025
China’s latest export restriction lays bare the complex geopolitics behind President Trump’s proposed tariffs—and the green energy transition.
Earlier this December, the Chinese government announced that it would curb the export of several key industrial minerals, as well as certain types of graphite. The move came in the context of mounting pressure on China from Washington, and in anticipation of stringent tariffs that Donald J. Trump has promised to levy when he returns to the presidency next year.
Chinese government spokespeople have argued that curbing export of these minerals is in line with their government’s antiproliferation efforts. They have said that the materials are “dual use,” and that they might be used in manufacturing weapons. Officials in the United States have historically also argued the same thing about some of the minerals, such as graphite, which the US put under strict export controls in 2006.
Among the minerals are antimony (which is used in night-vision goggles and bullets), gallium (precision-guided weapons and radar systems), and germanium (powerful sensors that are mounted on tanks, ships and helicopters). Superhard metals like tungsten may also be included in the restrictions, as is graphite, a type of carbon familiar from its use in pencils. Certain types of graphite are used in gun barrels, and others are dispersed on the battlefield as a sort of smoke that confuses electromagnetic wave detection devices.
Most of these materials also have considerable civilian uses. For instance, graphite is used in the anodes, or negative electrodes, of almost all lithium-ion batteries. (If you’re reading this article on a battery-powered device, you’re probably using graphite in some form.) What export controls mean is that non-Chinese companies that use the material in products destined for the United States will have to apply for export licenses. Such licenses will be up to Chinese officials to grant or withhold.
China controls the vast majority of the processing of some of these materials—a fact that began to register widely in Washington only as tensions began to ramp up with China during the previous Trump administration. China, for instance, produces 61 percent of natural graphite and 98 percent of the world’s final processed graphite. Graphite is also a key material in the green energy transition and electric vehicles: Last year, some 50 percent of the world’s natural graphite went into electric vehicles.
Beijing has managed to extend its grip across the supply chain in recent years. Efforts have been made—most notably through Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act—to create a supply chain for critical minerals that is independent of China, as well as the development of new technology that reduces the need for hard-to-get materials. But progress has been slow. “China is still set to be the dominant player,” said Tony Alderson, the senior anode and cathode analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a specialist provider of supply chain and energy transition information. “I think the investment that they are putting in is huge, and it is more than the US with regard to the anode supply chain.” Despite paeans to progress from politicians in Europe and the US, 2024, he said, was “the year of delays,” and a widening gap between supply and demand for critical minerals in everywhere but China.
Current Issue
By banning the export of these minerals, the Chinese government is showing that it has leverage over critical parts of the supply chain for electronics. “We see it in the industry as a shot across the bow,” Michael R. Hollomon II, the commercial director at US Strategic Metals, a mining and processing firm focused on green transition materials, told me. He noted that the Chinese have enacted similar bans of critical minerals in the past, including a ban last year of specific gallium and germanium products. “The Chinese government have put their money where their mouth is.”
Markets have reacted to the news of the most recent reductions: The price of antimony surged 40 percent on news of China’s most recent export curbs. It was something that worried Gary Evans, the CEO of US Antimony Corporation, the only domestic processor of antimony. Evans, speaking on Fox Business, worried that high prices would cause businesses to be priced out of the market.
Hollomon said that the Biden administration had often talked about building a supply chain independent from China, but that promised projects were often not followed through on, and that funding was held up at critical stages. China, on the other hand, has been able to fund projects and drive down costs for Chinese firms through massive injections of state capital into the mining, processing and industrial use of critical metals and transition technology. “We’ve been playing with our hands tied behind our backs—that is the way the West has been operating for the last 15 years,” he said.
But there is a more fundamental question at play as well. The United States traditionally limited technology transfers to China because of copyright concerns: This year, President Biden imposed an 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. The US government recently prepared restrictions on the import of AI technology into China (Beijing responded with an antitrust investigation into the US chip giant Nvidia), and Washington has been talking about “decoupling” from China for the last several years. In 2022, the US Department of Defense even released a 74-page report on “securing” the supply chain for materials used in military hardware. Chinese graphite is already subject to a 25 percent tariff in the US. (Last Wednesday, a North American trade association of active anode material producers asserted that such a tariff was “far too low” and asked the US government to levy a 920 percent tariff on Chinese graphite imports, a move that would double the cost of an electric vehicle Stateside.) Why would China help the United States build a supply chain that subverts its own interests and diminishes market share for Chinese companies?
In the critical metals and renewable energy space, there is growing apprehension over the use of tariffs in a part of the world economy in which China has become king. “To me,” Trump has said, “the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff.’” He has even suggested he would impose tariffs of up to 60 percent on Chinese goods. But while Washington seems to think of tariffs as a one-way street, China’s most recent show of force shows that Beijing has considerable leverage, especially when it comes to materials that are used in electric devices and vehicles.
In the end of the day, costs from tariffs usually get passed on to the consumer. Trump, who used fears of inflation to galvanize his base during the last election, will be wary of policies that cause too many shifts in prices. Antimony, after all, is not just in bullets; it is used as a flame retardant in roofing across the US.
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Perhaps rising costs will mean the next administration will be more amenable to striking a deal with China’s premier, Xi Jinping, an autocratic leader Trump reportedly admires. Elon Musk’s ties to China—around a half of Teslas are produced there, and the country is said to be the world’s second-largest market for the electric cars—might also complicate things. But that won’t solve the pressing issue of China’s domination of the supply chain for critical raw materials.
Industry players like Hollomon believe the incoming administration has the chance to spur domestic mining and processing through grants and streamlining regulations and building up the nation’s strategic reserve of minerals, many of which were sold off after the Cold War. But the outlook is also worrisome: increased tariffs have historically lead to retrenchment and stockpiling, which have tended to be ingredients in conflict. Even if such fears remain distant for now, a China in which the materials processing and battery industries are two bright spots in an otherwise bleak economic landscape is not likely to cede its primacy in those spaces any time soon.
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The Washington Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
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09-13-34-42-59, Powerball: 01
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This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Washington editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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This story contains descriptions of fatal violence against a transgender person.
The Seattle Police Department are searching for a suspect after a 19-year-old University of Washington student was stabbed to death in an off-campus student apartment complex on May 10.
Seattle Police Department Detective Eric Muñoz told NBC News that the victim is “believed to be a 19-year-old transgender female” who was enrolled at the university. The victim has not yet been publicly identified by name. She was found in the housing complex laundry room shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday night.
The housing complex, Nordheim Court, is privately managed but affiliated with the university, located near an upscale shopping center in Seattle’s U-Village neighborhood. According to NBC News, residents received an official alert from UW to stay inside their homes and lock all windows and doors — an alert that was lifted around 1 a.m. with the acknowledgment that “a death investigation remains ongoing.”
According to SPD detective Eric Muñoz, police and the fire department attempted lifesaving measures but ultimately “pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.”
“Officers are actively searching for the suspect, believed to be a black male with a beard, 5’6-8” tall, wearing a vest with button up shirt, and blue jeans,” Muñoz wrote in a blotter report.
Muñoz noted that the victim would be identified by the medical examiner’s office in “the coming days.” The SPD did not immediately respond to Them’s request for comment.
This is the seventh known trans person to be violently killed in 2026. In mid-April, 39-year-old transmasculine farmer Luca RedBeard was fatally shot in rural New Mexico. Last week, police in Marion County, Florida opened a homicide investigation into the shooting death of a 29-year-old who went by multiple names and referred to “transitioning” on social media. In Kentucky, an investigation into the disappearance of 22-year-old trans college student Murry Foust remains ongoing.
Police are asking anyone with information about the University of Washington case to call the Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000, emphasizing that anonymous tips are accepted.
This is a developing story.
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On a quiet stretch of Des Moines Memorial Drive in South Seattle, the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture rises like a long‑overdue acknowledgment. Its brick exterior doesn’t shout; it invites. Inside, the rooms hum with the stories of families who crossed borders, harvested fields, organized classrooms, and built communities across Washington state—often without seeing their histories reflected anywhere on a museum wall.
For Rogelio Riojas, founder and CEO of Sea Mar Community Health Centers, the museum is a promise kept. “We wanted to make sure the contributions of Latinos in Washington state are recognized and preserved for future generations,” he told The Seattle Times when the museum opened in 2019. It was a simple statement, but one that captured decades of work—both visible and invisible—by the region’s Latino communities.
Walking through the galleries feels like stepping into a living archive. One of the most arresting sights is a pair of original farmworker cabins, transported from Eastern Washington. Their narrow wooden frames and sparse interiors speak volumes about the migrant families who once slept inside after long days in the fields. The cabins are not replicas or artistic interpretations; they are the real thing, weathered by sun, dust, and time. They anchor the museum’s narrative in the physical realities of labor that shaped the state’s agricultural economy.
Sea Mar describes the museum as “dedicated to sharing the history, struggles, and successes of the Latino community in Washington state,” a mission that plays out in photographs, letters, student newspapers, and oral histories contributed by community members themselves. These aren’t artifacts chosen from afar—they’re family treasures, personal archives, and memories entrusted to the museum so they can live beyond the kitchen tables and shoeboxes where they were once kept.
The story extends beyond the museum walls. Just steps away is the Sea Mar Community Center, a sweeping, light‑filled gathering space designed for celebrations, performances, workshops, and community events. With room for nearly 500 people, a full stage, a movie‑theater‑sized screen, and a catering kitchen, the center was built with one purpose: to give the community a place to see itself, gather, and grow. Sea Mar describes it as “a welcoming space for families, organizations, and community groups to gather, celebrate, and learn,” and on any given weekend, it lives up to that promise.
Together, the museum and community center form a cultural campus—part historical archive, part living room for the region’s Latino communities. Students come to learn about the Chicano activists who reshaped the University of Washington in the late 1960s. Families come to see their own histories reflected in the exhibits. Visitors come to understand a story that has long been present in Washington, even if it wasn’t always visible.
The Sea Mar Museum is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., offering free admission to anyone who walks through its doors. For many, it’s more than a museum—it’s a recognition, a gathering place, and a testament to the people who helped shape the Pacific Northwest.
Preserving Latino History and Community Life in Washington was first published on Washington Latino News (WALN) and republished with permission.
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