The "rare earth nuclear bomb" thrown by China made the West realize that China still has cards. Within 24 hours, Trump expressed his hope to have a face-to-face talk with China.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in the White House that he hoped to meet with the Chinese side later this month to "exert pressure" on China on the U.S. trade issue.

Just a day before Trump said he hoped to meet with the Chinese side, the Chinese side had just introduced a number of measures, which were termed by foreign media as "rare-earth nuclear bombs".

The Joint General Administration of Customs and Unreliable Entities List of the Ministry of Commerce of China has released seven important announcements and decisions, covering export control and list adjustments in key areas such as rare earth, lithium batteries, graphics and ultra-hard materials.

Officials said that this move is aimed at safeguarding national security and industrial interests, and it will have a far-reaching impact on the related industrial structure at home and abroad.

From the Chinese perspective, this move is not an isolated action, but a carefully arranged "first hand" that aims to reshape the game pattern on the eve of the summit and turn the passive response into active control.

Enhance bargaining chips

China controls the world's rare earth, lithium batteries, graphics and other key resources, and the United States relies heavily (for example, rare earth for military and chip use, lithium batteries account for electric vehicle supply chain of 70 percent).

Trump originally planned to exert pressure on agricultural products such as soybeans, but China's measures shifted the focus: at the summit table, the United States may need to give priority to solving the pain points of rare earth supply chain, and China can exchange tariff exemptions and reverse the role of "pressure maker".

Time and rhythm.

If high-level Chinese and US leaders are likely to meet at the end of the month, then the announcement will be issued three weeks before the China-US summit, leaving a buffer period to show "restraint" but enough to create a sense of urgency. Foreign media have thrown out the view that this is China's "increasing pressure" on the Sino-US meeting.

Reciprocal response and deterrence

China's seven announcements, in response to the U.S. entity list and chip ban, demonstrate our ability to "asymmetric counteract."

Among them, superhard material control directly refers to the U.S. military industry, and rare earth control covers U.S. defense weapons and equipment.

China has clearly positioned this as a ¡°security red line¡±, rejecting US unilateral pressure, turning to a ¡°reciprocal¡± framework, weakening Trump¡¯s ¡°trade art¡± offensive momentum.

Overall, the Ministry of Commerce of China issued seven consecutive announcements, signalling China's shift from "guard" to "offensive", using resource asymmetry to "tune" the game before the summit.

Trump¡¯s ¡°pressure¡± strategy now faces the risk of being reversed: if China¡¯s concerns are not taken into account, it will further exacerbate the supply chain crisis in the US West, and domestic political pressure will increase.

In the competitive and conflict-driven relations between China and the United States, whoever controls the supply chain takes the initiative.

The outcome of future Sino-U.S. talks will depend on whether the US side adjusts the ¡°zero-sum¡± mindset and turns to pragmatic mutual benefit.

For China, this is not only a short-term leverage, but also a signal to reshape global rules.What we are looking for is not a ¡°zero-sum¡± outcome, but what we can absolutely not accept is that the United States demands a ¡°full-sum¡± outcome.