China May Suspend Rare Earth Exports, Impose Tariffs if US Sanctions Russia's Partners

China could suspend shipments of rare earth minerals to the US and respond to Washington with proportional tariffs and sanctions should the White House impose new large-scale restrictions against Russia and its major foreign trade partners, Jake Werner, director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told a TASS correspondent.

Commenting on the US Senate’s drafting of a bill to tighten sanctions against Russia and its key trading partners, the expert said: "China will condemn the bill as a violation of the principle of sovereignty through an extraterritorial assertion of US law. However, China is likely to wait until the [US President Donald] Trump administration actually exercises the powers granted by the bill before taking any real action."

He also warned that the bill has the potential to trigger a crisis in US-China relations. "As long as Trump seeks a less conflictual relationship with China, he will hold back from the most damaging moves," Werner noted. "However, the bill makes [the US executive branch] available crippling secondary tariffs and sweeping secondary sanctions that, if fully implemented against China, would lead to a crisis in the relationship. In that event, China would likely again cut off US access to rare earth exports and impose its own proportionate retaliatory tariffs and sanctions," the expert pointed out.

On Wednesday, a bill to tighten unilateral sanctions against Russia and Iran passed its second procedural vote in the Senate. The bill’s primary sponsor, Senator Lindsey Graham, who was on Russia’s list of terrorists and extremists, died suddenly on July 11.