The contents of this article are written with authoritative materials and personal opinions. The source of the literature has been marked at the end of the article, so please know.
Preliminary
When the United States was "worried" about obtaining rare earths, Pakistan suddenly delivered it to the door, giving Trump an unexpected surprise.
A few days ago, the United States and Pakistan signed a strategic agreement to approve the export of domestic rare earths to the United States, alleviating the urgent need of the US military industry.
Why does Pakistan do this, and how much impact does it have on the global process of rare earth?
There was an "accident" in the "Rare Earth Cooperation Program" of the United States some time ago. The reason was that this year, American rare earth manufacturers and Brazil reached an agreement of intention, and the two countries were ready to cooperate in mining rare earths.
At this time, Trump is biased to “interfere” in Brazil’s internal affairs, demanding that Brazilian President Lula release his “old friend” Bosonaro.
This act of interference with the judiciary has sparked extreme discontent in Brazil, and not only has the trade agreement not been signed, but the cooperation in rare-earth areas has also gone.
Now Trump is engaging in cross-regional rare-earth cooperation globally, and the Brazilian emergency disaster has disrupted his plans.
At this time, Pakistan suddenly made progress, announcing a rare-earth deal with the United States.
Recently, Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif and Army Chief of Staff Munir personally traveled to the United States and signed a contract with Trump.
Under the agreement, Pakistan approved the sale of resources such as rare earth and gold to the United States in exchange for U.S. investment agreements.
In fact, this has been known for a period of time, and in the U.S.-Pakistan cooperation plan at the end of July this year, foreign media has noted the "critical mineral cooperation".
Because America’s most lacking “critical mineral” is undoubtedly rare earth, there was a lot of media speculation at the time, and Pakistan and the United States were already talking about it.
So why did Pakistan send the door to talk to the U.S. about rare lands?
The outside world believes that Pakistan wants to “transform” rare lands as the main reason.
Pakistan's economic difficulties have not changed in recent years. After Sharif took office, he is still mired in high foreign debt and soaring inflation. The money owed to other countries and international organizations has reached $130 billion.
Pakistan's current financial situation is so bad that it has been determined by the International Monetary Fund to "rely on foreign aid" to maintain it. If these rare earths can be exchanged for foreign exchange reserves, Pakistan will definitely find it very tempting.
In addition, Pakistan has considerable reserves of rare earth resources at home, according to foreign media estimates worth as much as $8 trillion, many of which are still lightweight.
However, Pakistan does not have independent technology and conditions to develop these rare earths. They lack funds all year round, lack preliminary investment to start large-scale mining, and cannot even afford equipment.
In terms of technology, Pakistan also has not reached the threshold standard, and is very far from the efficient and environmentally friendly mining and purification process.
Even if it can be mined, it is also difficult to sell rare land due to the problem of backward construction in Pakistan, the lack of electricity, transportation and other supporting facilities in resource-rich areas.
Therefore, when the United States had the technology to mine light rare earths, Pakistan chose to sell them to the United States.
In fact, another thing is that the outside world speculates that Pakistan is strengthening relations with the United States through this move, which is also a key reason for their "selling rare land."
This is not only because the U.S. is committed to helping Pakistan build a complete industrial chain, providing them with other investments and job creation, but also to provide more profitable access to aid and loans in the future U.S.-led financial system, such as the IMF.
In the past few months, Pakistani Marshal Munir has visited the United States and the United States twice to strengthen relations, none of which concealed the willingness to cooperate with the United States.
At the same time, because of the "old enemy" relationship between Pakistan and India, Pakistan is taking advantage of this opportunity to "take advantage of every opportunity" when the relationship between India and the United States has deteriorated in recent months.
As the core material of high-end military and high-tech industries, rare earth is the "blood" of the US military's hidden warplanes, nuclear submarines, missile systems and other equipment manufacturing.
Why is Pakistan's wave of assistance to the United States in need?
The reason is that after Trump took office, he just took over the "plate" of the Biden era and faced the situation that rare earths were controlled by China.
Trump has signed several rare-earth deals in a row before, but it’s not ideal at all.
In addition to the above-mentioned agreement with Brazil that "failed", the United States and Ukraine also signed a rare earth agreement, but because most rare earths are difficult to mine in the Donbas region.
They also signed an agreement with the Congo (Kim), the United States agreed to help the country "to peace" and drive out the M23 movement, and then the Trump administration did not do what it promised, and the Pakistan agreement came at the right time.
Is Pakistan’s rare-earth cooperation with the United States a “stand-up” completely toward the United States?
According to their own statement, this is not the case. If Pakistan wants to "survive" at present, it needs to seek a balanced strategy of space between China and the United States.
Pakistani media believes that they and the United States can form a trading partner, and the two sides can reach some strategic energy, oil exploration deals, etc.
But in the end, China remains the core investor in Pakistan's infrastructure construction, from the Chinese-Pakistan economic corridor to the development of minerals, the cooperation between the two sides has been very deep, and still the "long-line structure", China's position is fundamentally irreplaceable.
At this time, the American media also raised another question: Once the rare earth issue has been solved, what should we do about technical issues? You can't buy this from the Pakistan government.
This is indeed the case. After the United States now has sufficient supply of rare earths, it will continue to fall into the dilemma of "having mines but no chains"-although it has rare earth resources, it lacks processing capabilities.
According to the data released by the US media some time ago, the US's dependence on China's rare earths is more impressive than before.
For example, 98% of the world's uranium oxide is produced in China, other countries import and then sell, but in fact it is still produced in China.
In addition, other medium and heavy rare earth products are processed in China by other companies and then shipped back to China for labeling and sale.
This made the US "mistakenly think" that it was a foreign product, but in fact, it was made in China after a circle.
Pakistan’s supply, though theoretically, could address the shortage of rare earth needed for U.S. military industry.
But to solve the problem of how to refine this, relying on Trump's current "global buying rare earth" strategy is definitely not possible, and Pakistan can not help the United States with anything.
Foreign experts have previously predicted that the "decisive point" of the first round of tariff games between China and the United States is China's controlled exports of rare earth.
As long as Trump cannot get rid of rare earths 'dependence on China, the United States will not be able to rashly launch the next "tariff war" attack against China. China will still have the "trump card" to counter it.
Therefore, we must seize this strategic window to get more chips before the United States solves the rare earth problem.
reference
"Cow plays the piano: Recent Pakistan is really impressive" Beijing News Network
"Foreign Media: Pakistani Prime Minister Invites US Companies to Invest in Pakistan" Reference News
"During about 80 minutes," Indian media watched: Trump's closed-door talks with the Pakistani prime minister and army marshal