The reality is that it's probably good they're forcing our hand now rather than keep dumping and stringing us along.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earths_trade_dispute
Either were not actually that bothered by the restriction and are using this to gin up conflict, or we've been this incompetent at responding to existential threats for over a decade and a half, including multiple presidents, both parties holding power, and this current admin's first term.
I am not really excited about either situation.
I think the bigger problem than the military is probably the nascent EV industry here. It must use orders of magnitude more of them than the defense industry, which can surely source them indirectly much the way China is still getting the chips we have export controls on.
I doubt they can kill our missile production no matter what they do but they can probably kill Tesla.
How the I-95 Bridge Reopened Just 12 Days After Fiery Collapse (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-28/resurrect...)
It's time for us to grow anti-fragility and independence. And we should expect China to do the same.
Sucks for US soybean farmers, but it would have undoubtedly happened in the future regardless.
We need to distribute critical manufacturing far and wide amongst our allies, and onshore some of the most important pieces. (Though I'm not sure the current admin considers our allies as friends, which is not a great idea during this great reshuffling.)
It will be impossible or difficult for the US to “leverage” its traditional allies in the way it has in the past. NATO and trade were powerful tools to protect US interests but have been devalued considerably by what has happened this year.
Public sentiment towards the US in these countries is at unprecedented historic lows and given these allies were democracies, this means their political class cannot continue to support the US almost unconditionally like they have in the past. This destruction of goodwill will take a generation to repair.
When China starts throwing its weight around in the Pacific you’ll pretty quickly see those “allies” cozy back up.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce808gvp56mo
PS: Sorry guys, you fucked up. Hard. And by extension fucked everyone else, so expect no sympathies. We will be busy with the new boss, while trying to keep our democracies not going to crap too. New boss, worse boss than old boss.
Now imagine if people stopped strong-arming each other.