this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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Was China's rare earth export ban a retaliation against Trump's tariffs or a strategic timing to enact the ban? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by Flutterpuff@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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If Trump's tariffs hadn't happened, would China have found other ways to implement the ban?

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[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 4 weeks ago

If China had initiated the ban it would have been viewed as an unjustified violation of free trade, which is against the image China has cultivated for itself. Trump already showed in his first term that he cannot resist starting trade wars, and China understands this too. All they had to do was let the US make the mistake everyone knew they were bound to make and give China the justification for retaliating.