Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit the United States on September 24 to meet with US President Trump. A Reuters columnist said that China is tight on the supply of the rare earth metal "Yttrium", which is expected to become an important issue during the meeting between the two heads of state.
Reuters columnist Andy Home wrote that the United States needs yttrium, and China is the main supplier of this unpopular rare earth metal, dominating the field like other key minerals. China has not exported yttrium to the United States since the middle of last year, and supply has been extremely unstable since then.
The supply shortage is hitting the aerospace, energy and semiconductor industries, underscoring how inseparable the rare earth metal is from modern manufacturing.
In addition to being used in the fields of screen displays, semiconductors and lasers, yttrium is also used in thermal insulation coatings to protect aircraft jet engines from high temperature damage, so it is of strategic importance.
There is little information on the exact size of the yttrium market. Even the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) cannot determine how much yttrium has been mined globally, but it estimates that global yttrium mine production last year ranged from 10,000 to 15,000 metric tons.
Yttrium's importance makes it a powerful weapon in China's trade negotiations. Nearly all the world's yttrium comes from China, but Beijing has never released any information on mining or production quotas. The only thing that is certain is that China implemented export controls on yttrium and six other rare earths in April last year, resulting in an almost complete stagnation of foreign supply.
Before the talks between Xi Jinping and Trump in Busan, South Korea, at the end of October last year, the United States resumed receiving yttrium. However, after the talks, the supply of yttrium was cut off again. As of February this year, a severe shortage of yttrium caused the U.S. coating supply chain to shut down production.
China exported as much as 600,000 tons of yttrium oxide to the United States in March this year. It is reported that the White House directly intervened on behalf of an important company that had difficulty in obtaining an export license.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer lamented the slow pace of China's yttrium exports a few months later, saying frankly: "Sometimes we have to put forward our position."
Although Trump visited China in May and Beijing said it would cooperate with Washington to address "reasonable" concerns about rare earth exports, exports were interrupted again, with only 29 tons exported until July.
As the U.S.-China trade standoff expands, it is clear that Beijing is using yttrium as a pressure tool, supplying just enough to prevent the situation from turning into a full-scale confrontation, but not enough to relieve pressure on supply chains.
In addition, as the European Union (EU) trade deficit with China continues to expand, EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic called on China to resolve related issues before the end of October, "otherwise (China) will face huge political pressure to find another solution."
Sefcovic is also looking forward to negotiations on China's export controls on key minerals, with yttrium almost certain to be a focus of discussions.
Holm said at the end of the article that yttrium is now at the core of global politics, and as long as Beijing tightens its grip on supply, the status of this rare earth metal will not be shaken.
