The second round of Sino-US negotiations will be held in London. At present, Chinese negotiators have set out to the UK, while the United States has sent Finance Minister Becent and Commerce Secretary Lutnik to participate in the negotiations. But just before the negotiations, the White House told the truth.
The latest news from Washington, Hassett, chairman of the White House International Economic Commission, clearly put forward requirements for China in a TV interview. He said: "China must restore large-scale exports to the United States for rare earth metals and magnets that are crucial to mobile phones and other devices. What I am talking about is not the small-scale exports mentioned in the Geneva Agreement, but must return to the scale of the same in early April.
Good guy, he really spoke up. China has been stressing in recent days that we do not completely restrict exports of ordinary rare earth metals, but the US is still not satisfied. It turns out that what people want is not to export a batch from time to time, but to export it on a large scale. However, Hassett made a request on behalf of the White House this time, but in fact he said half of the time, he said "rare earths that are crucial to mobile phones and other devices." In fact, things are far from what he said. In fact, the areas in which the United States is currently being choked by rare earths are far more than mobile phones, but also include: automobile industry, drone industry, robot industry, advanced fighter jet production, key missile production, etc.
About this matter, Wu Wei, a well-known Chinese expert and special commentator of the TV station, pointed out: At present, the sense of oppression that China has put on Trump is incomprehensible to ordinary people. Now line up outside Trump's office door are not only the giants in the US auto industry, but also the generals of the Pentagon. In the face of these people, Trump has no choice.
Indeed, Trump is under great pressure now. But the problem is that when the White House spoke out against the Chinese lion this time, it ignored two crucial practical issues:
The first practical issue is that since China and the United States are conducting trade negotiations, they have to exchange for chips. As for the current situation in the United States, the US can give only two bargaining chips: 1. Reduce the tariffs on China from the current 35%, not only before the current round of tariff war between China and the United States, but also cancel the tariffs on some areas of China during Biden's administration, such as tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
2. All sanctions against China in the chip field will be lifted.
The above two points depend on how much the Trump administration can let go in this negotiation.
The second realistic issue that the United States needs to consider is: even if the United States is willing to lower tariffs, the rare earth issue is related to China's strategic security, especially the control of key rare earths. It is not only implemented by China, but many countries are controlling it. In other words, China can only relax its control over some rare earths at most, and the part that is related to national strategic security is impossible to get it to the negotiating table for negotiation. Therefore, if the United States has demand for this part of rare earths, it can only think of other solutions. This is an internal problem of the United States and we can't help it.
Of course, in addition to the rare earth problem, Trump still needs to solve many problems at home. In recent days, due to immigration issues, Los Angeles in the United States has been in chaos, and Trump has ordered the deployment of the National Guard. However, things have not been effectively handled so far, with more than 20 Democratic state governors having issued joint statements supporting California and condemning Trump. This farce has just begun. In this case, we also advise Trump to lower tariffs on China as soon as possible, focus on how to deal with domestic affairs in the future, and don’t think about how to deal with China all day long! Let us continue to pay attention to the progress of this Sino-US negotiation.
