Trump says the United States has a much more important lever on China on magnets

“We have much larger and better than them cards,” he said on Monday. “If I played these cards, it would destroy China. I’m not going to play these cards.”

China has interrupted most of rare land magnet shipments in the United States in April, armoring the country’s 90% grip on world production to tighten American factories. Beijing has agreed to normalize flows as part of a commercial truce negotiated with Trump administration, expeditions to the United States reaching a six-month summit in July.

Beijing sends a key sales negotiator to the United States this week, according to the Wall Street JournalIn what could indicate a resumption of talks between the two parties after agreeing to a break in their dispute.

Trump congratulated China for the “intelligently” identification of rare earths as a critical component for the important industries and its rapid emotion to establish a monopoly in their mining and their treatment.

“We are now heavy in the world of magnets, only from the point of view of national security,” said Trump. “But we have a powerful thing. These are plane games and many Boeing Jets.”

Trump said China had 200 jets who were unable to fly because the United States did not give him pieces of Boeing due to Beijing policies on magnets.

“I sent them all the pieces so that their planes can fly,” said the Republican. “I could have retained them. I did not do this because of the relationship I have. And they fly. ”

‘Excellent relationship’

Trump also talked about an expected meeting organized by the Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the Asian nation. The American president repeated that he had a “good relationship” with XI and said he had spoken “quite recently”.

“At one point, probably during this year or shortly after, we will go to China,” he said.

A preliminary handshake between Trump and Xi on the contours of an agreement would be necessary before any major summit between the two could occur, said Feng Chucheng, founding partner of Hutong Research, based in Beijing. He underlined the summit of the APEC group in the countries of Asia-Pacific in South Korea at the end of October as a possible place.

“Without a long-term settlement with the United States, companies cannot recover significantly in China,” added Feng.

In the end, the biggest asset that the United States has in negotiations are prices, said Trump, floating a potential rate up to 200% on China if he does not provide magnets.

But he added that he thought that the problem “was behind us” and did not suggest that China did not provide enough magnets.

“If we want to put 100% 200% tariffs, we would not do business with China. And you know, it would be ok too, if we do it,” he said. “But the situation of the magnet – we have enormous power over them, and they have a certain power over us.”

The president has also suggested substantial progress to develop domestic supplies, saying that it will “take us about a year to have the magnets”, without being more precise.

MP Materials Corp., the only rare US Earths Miner, plans to start the commercial production of magnets later this year. But it should operate at modest production levels before expansion – funded by the party by the Pentagon – over the rest of this decade.