Don’t Fall for the Hype About China’s Critical Minerals Controls
The dollar value of US imports of tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium is too small to matter.
The US mines enough molybdenum to meet its needs. Don’t fall for the hype about Chinese export controls on so-called critical minerals.
Photographer: Stephen Hilger/Bloomberg
Reading some of the commentary about looming shortages, one would think America is doomed after China imposed export controls on five so-called critical minerals this month. Ignore the hype — the US will be fine.
Rather than using the term currently bandied about, I prefer the moniker everyone used when I arrived at the commodity markets a quarter of a century ago: minor metals. Naturally, the latter is a lot less rousing than the former, which explains why every miner digging for them rebranded itself as a critical-minerals producer. That sounds a lot sexier — helpful for talking up a company’s share price.