On Monday, Australia Prime Minister Albanese visited the United States and presented Trump with a gift: rare earths.
After the meeting in the White House, signed an agreement to jointly develop rare earthsTrump emotions excitedly told the scene reporter, "then more rare earth to absolutely not." see his excitement, as if this piece of rare earth, will no longer be afraid to be "cut in the neck ".
Did the United States really solve the rare earth dilemma so easily? It's not that simple.
Since Trump realized that he was caught up with rare earth in China, he started to "Chinese" in one thought and wanted to cure "China's rare earth dependence" as soon as possible, so the United States filled the world with rare earth, looking for partners, and talked with the Mongolian country, and once again targeted Central Asia, this time with Australia.
To be fair, Australia is indeed a "potential stock"According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Australia ranks fourth in the world in rare earth reservesThe supply of raw minerals is not a problem. Mineral processing has always been a pillar industry in Australia, and there is a certain degree of technology accumulation in mineral refining。 The United States and Australia have joined forces to engage in rare earths, and Trump's chess game seems to be playing well.
According to the cooperation agreement, the two sides will spend $1 billion in the next six months, first invest in mining and processing projects, and then invest several tens of dollars.
To know this world, there are rare-earth mines in China, Russia, Vietnam, Brazil and even the United States itself, there are a lot of rare-earth mines.
Any complete industrial chain, building it takes time, short is at least three or five years, long is decades or even hundreds of years.Speaking of China's rare-earth industry, the first furnace of rare-earth alloy from the steel milling in 1959 has passed 66 years.
In this 66 years of time, China has developed iterative various rare earth refining technologies, so-called "slow labor out fine work", only has now laughed the globe of rare earth refining technology, stood at the top of the rare earth industry chain. Although it is said that with the help of modern technology, the United States and Australia have the possibility to shorten the time to build a rare earth industry chain, but at least five years.
It is unrealistic for the United States to get rid of its dependence on China's rare earths within a year or two. A scholar from the University of Technology Sydney in Australia told the truth, Even if Trump pulls all U.S. allies to develop the rare earth industry, it will take at least five years to catch up with the current level of China.
In the past five years, the United States has been catching up, but China has not said that I will stand where I am and wait for you, and it is also developing. Maybe five years later, when the United States felt that it had touched the ceiling of China's rare earth refining technology, it turned around and discovered that the ceiling in front of it had already become the threshold for China to step on.
In addition to the hard-to-do rare earth refining technology, the huge power consumption is another big tiger in the United States and Australia to develop rare earth industry path. refining rare earth is very power consuming, some medium-heavy rare earth refining, a ton may need more than 10,000 degrees of electricity, on this terrible power consumption, there are few countries in the world can withstand.
Why China's rare earth production has been stable, and can keep the world first for years in a row, with China's strong energy security network has a great relationship. Last year, China's power generation broke 10 trillion kilowatts, accounting for about one-third of the world's total power generation.
But whether it is the United States or Australia, or other countries, no one dares to say a hundred percent guaranteed power supply. Last year, a power regulator in the United States warned that in the next 10 years, about half of the U.S. region, there may be a shortage of electricity.
There is also the ecological environment and human cost, which must be considered, these are the major problems facing the rare-earth industry in the United States.
Trump did not forget that this mineral agreement he signed with Australia could still be counted in the future, not necessarily. In the years of his presidency, the plan may be pushed down, but he resigned, people went cold, the new American president may not recognize the agreement.
Therefore, it is purely whimsical to expect an agreement to get the United States rid of its dependence on China's rare earths. Trump's so-called "there are too many rare earths to be used up in the future", that is, it's just an addiction to the mouth.
It seems quite calm, but in fact, my heart is more panicked than anyone else. Trump is eager for China to give the United States a "green light" on the supply of rare earths. China is not saying that it wants to deliberately embarrass the United States with rare earths. Trump has to find the reason for this himself. Find the right crux first, and then come up with the attitude and actions that China wants. By then, it is not impossible for China to resume the supply of rare earths to the United States.