Instead of broad subsidies across all critical minerals, a more effective strategy is to target the ~25 materials that China has explicitly used as leverage through export controls. This "power law" approach concentrates capital on acute vulnerabilities identified by China's own actions, rather than diluting it across a wide, less-critical list.

The goal for a majority-EV fleet is not viable with current technology. The material requirements for batteries and components are so vast that a US-only transition would consume every scrap of lithium, copper, graphite, and other key minerals produced globally, leaving none for any other country or industry.

While the US focuses on quarterly returns, China has spent decades investing in and controlling the supply chain for critical minerals essential for technology and defense, securing long-term leverage.

For 30 years, China identified rare earths as a strategic industry. By massively subsidizing its own companies and dumping product to crash prices, it methodically drove US and global competitors out of business, successfully creating a coercive dependency for the rest of the world.

While headlines focus on advanced chips, China’s real leverage comes from its strategic control over less glamorous but essential upstream inputs like rare earths and magnets. It has even banned the export of magnet-making technology, creating critical, hard-to-solve bottlenecks for Western manufacturing.

China achieved its near-monopoly on rare earths not by chance, but through a long-term state-sponsored strategy. This involved providing capital to key firms, funding overseas acquisitions, banning foreign ownership of domestic mines, and consolidating the industry to control global prices.

China is restricting exports of essential rare earth minerals and EV battery manufacturing equipment. This is a strategic move to protect its global dominance in these critical industries, leveraging the fact that other countries have outsourced environmentally harmful mining to them for decades.

China's leadership in renewables isn't just in manufacturing. It has strategically secured control over the entire supply chain—from owning international mines and refining raw ore to producing the final solar panels and batteries—giving it immense geopolitical and economic leverage.

China's global dominance isn't in owning mines, but in controlling the midstream refining and smelting processes. This creates a critical choke point for the West's supply of essential materials for defense, AI, and electrification, as they control 50-98% of processing capacity for key metals.