News

Congressman says China’s rare earth export limits tied to trade war

The ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on China says an escalation of the ongoing trade war will compound the pain being felt by America’s farmers.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi says the administration’s threats of adding a 100% tariff on Chinese imports will impact some ag inputs.

“Many of us anticipated that farmers, unfortunately, would be in the crosshairs of China and others as retaliation, and that’s exactly what’s happened.”  He says, “Now we have farmers seeing dramatic declines in the export of their crops.”

The Illinois Democrat tells Brownfield the move comes in response to China’s tightening of exports of rare earth minerals, on which U.S. manufacturing is heavily reliant. 

“We should not have begun this trade war, especially given our vulnerabilities on critical minerals.”  He says, “Everybody’s been talking about it. The Biden administration previewed this, and yet, Donald Trump escalated the trade war, and the Chinese exploited that vulnerability.”

He says the escalation is not likely to lead to Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans anytime soon.

“China, long term, is making bets elsewhere, and you can see that even in the infrastructure that they’re building to help facilitate that trade, especially in South America,” he says.

China responded to the Administration’s announcement of new tariffs with several measures, including new charges on American ships docking at Chinese ports. No new retaliatory tariffs have been announced yet.

Krishnamoorthi says isolationist policies hurt American agriculture, and the government needs to help farmers access global markets.

In a social media post on Sunday, President Trump told followers not to worry about China. “It will all be fine, and the U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it.”

AUDIO: Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi