Well, that was fun while it lasted. After breaking through to a new all-time high north of $126,000, bitcoin pulled one of the largest Barts in its history Friday evening on the back of a sudden escalation in Strategic UncertaintyTM straight from the phone of the Commander in Chief. After months of market melt-ups lulling the world to sleep on the whole “global economic reordering” thing, President Trump shook everyone awake by declaring that he will slap an incremental 100% tariff on China while also subjecting the country to new controls on critical software in response to the Middle Kingdom’s significant tightening of rare earth metals exports.
pull down to refresh
related posts
0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 13 Oct
Interesting that Vietnam has some independent capacity in this crucial supply chain via which China is holding Trump and the west to ransom.
My understanding is Vietnam is wary of China and perhaps this is why they have maintained some independent rare earth production capacity.
It is definitely a strategic supply chain where free markets alone do not provide solutions as over the past decades nobody could compete with China on cost and so the west lost nearly all its capacity.
Perhaps Vietnam can produce at a similar production cost to China because it may not be burdened with the health and safety and environmental costs most other industrialised nations producers face?
reply
10 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner OP 13 Oct
I'm not familiar with the reality in Vietnam or China, so I can't answer that.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 13 Oct
Chinese government have deliberately developed global dominance in rare earths refining knowing that it is a strategic supply chain.
They threatened to withhold supply to Japan more than a decade ago and now are withholding supply to all western nations who without that supply cannot manufacture many of the high tech and military products.
My understanding is Vietnam has long been wary of China as for thousands of years China has exerted influence/expected tribute over/from neighbouring countries, and is now doing the same again. Already N.Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are tribute states largely subservient to China.
China is building a massive canal and port project in Cambodia to divert traffic on the Mekong to avoid Vietnams strategic control of the Mekong delta.
It is also building road and rail through Myanmar to access international shipping routes avoiding the Malacca strait.
reply