That matters because it shifts the negotiating balance to China, as evidenced by the changes to rare earth export conditions. That has significant implications for US-China relations, but it also affects the wider economic community outside of China.
Tariffs were to be an inevitable subject of discussion in the meeting between President Xi Jinping of China and US President Donald Trump. However, Beijing had never publicly confirmed the meeting would take place. China’s recent expansion of limits around the export of rare earths and associated components appears to have reduced the prospects of any meeting.
Trump assumes that America is such a large and vital market that China cannot afford to lose it. China’s export figures suggest that America is not as important as Trump would like to think.
