U.S. Trade Dispute With China Over Rare Earth Elements The U.S. government has brought a new trade case against China over rare earth elements(REE) as well as tungsten and molybdenum,President Barack Obama announced on 13 March. Japan and the European Union also have taken similar actions against China about REEs, which are a group of 17 chemically similar metallic elements that are used in a variety of electronic, optical, magnetic,and catalytic applications.REEs are plentiful in the Earth’s crust,although China currently has about 37% of the world’s reserves and accounts for more than 95% of the world’s production of the elements,according to the British Geological Survey.The United States has requested consultations with China at the World Trade Organization(WTO) concerning “China’s unfair export restraints on rare earths, as well as tungsten and molybdenum,” the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced in a 13 March statement.“China imposes several different types of unfair export restraints on the materials at issue in today’s consultations request, including export duties, export quotas, export pricing requirements, as well as related export procedures and requirements,” according to the statement.“Because China is a top global producer for these key inputs, its harmful policies artificially increase prices for the inputs outside of China while lowering prices in China. This price dynamic creates significant advantages for China’s producers when competing against U.S. producers—both in China’s market and in othermarkets around the world. The improper export restraints also contribute to creating substantial pressure on U.S. and other non-Chinese downstream producers to move their operations, jobs, and technologies to China.”If the matter is not resolved through consultations within 60 days, the United States can request that WTO establish a dispute settlement panel.A 15 March statement posted on the ChineseMinistry of Commerce Web site states that the head of the ministry’s Department of Treaty and Law “commented that China has maintained communication and contacts with all parties regarding its policies on raw material export, and has repeatedly stressed that China’s policy objective is to protect resources and environment in order to achieve sustainable development, and has no intention of protecting domestic industries through trade-distorting measures. According to the head , China will handle the consultation requests in line with the proceduralrules of WTO dispute settlement.”A 13 March article appearing on China’s Xinhua news agency Web site by editor Mu Xuequan states, “The fact is, although China now produces more than 90 percent of the world’s rare earth supplies, it does not have all the deposits. Most nations with rare earth deposits, including the United States, closed their own mines decades ago and craved for cheap supplies from China. Rare-earth mining and processing is notoriously devastating to the environment, making it politically difficult for those countries to reopen the mines, which means China is still expected to contribute tremendously to rare earth supplies. However, those undeniable truths are overlooked as tunnel vision only sees unfair trading practices.” Experts Weigh In Lluís Fontboté, president of the Society of Economic Geologists and professor University of Geneva, in Switzerland, told Eos that there is no danger of an REE shortage geologically because there are large potential resources around the world. He said that China has produced REEs very cheaply and abundantly in recent years, so producers in other countries have had difficulty selling their products, companies did not have incentives to invest in new mines, and the production of mines in some otherplaces was not well maintained.“For some time, governments and the public have believed that mineral resources will be always available and cheap and that they can be so easily acquired as going to the supermarket at the corner. This crisis illustrates some limits of fair trade in a global market and shows how important it is to maintain a deep knowledge of mineral resources and knowledge on their potential in different parts of the world,” he said.Yaron Vorona, director of the Technology and Rare Earth Metals Center at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told Eos that it was “telling” that the U.S. action did not mention the importance of rare earths to national defense technologies, “which has the potential to show a weakness in the military’s supply chain.”Vorona said, “The fact is that China not only produces most of the world’s rare earths, but they also produce most of the world’s rare earth intellectual capital. Most of the world’s technical expertise for these materials exists in China. Training a new generation of rare earth scientists out of China will take longer than a few years. Additionally, while the market will adjust to external shocks, it does take time. The rare earth industry can be characterized more as a chemical industry than a mining one—extracting rare earths from ore is a long and complex process, and the metallurgy is the greatest constraint (after recruitment) for the industry.”He said the 13 March action is particularly useful because it is consultative and that the parties to the dispute—Japan, the United States, some European nations, and China—now have an opportunity to meet and discuss the issues formally to reach a solution. Vorona said one outcome could be that China acquiesces on the issue. However, he cautioned that China could treat the action as hostile and respond with retaliatory actions against the United States, “either through WTO filings of its own, or by exacerbating the rare earth situation and slowing or stopping exports as they did during the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute in September 2010.” Vorona continued, “Regardless,it can take a long time to reach a conclusion in this multistage process and even longerfor China to reach compliance they are found to be in breach of their agreement. As such, it is unlikely we will see quick change.”Yasushi Watanabe, prime senior research geologist with the Geological Survey of Japan, told Eos that the United States, the European Union, and Japan started discussions last year about taking this recent trade action. He said a possible reason they took the action now is that even if China takes a strong countermeasure, several rare earth projects outside China will produce enough amounts of rare earths so that the REE market outside China would not have a big supply problem this year. Watanabe added that the trade action “is effective, at least to let China recognize that China’s measure is regarded as unfair in the international society.” Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, told Eos, “Rare earths are vital components in a host of advanced technology and defense applications. The U.S. used to be the world’s leading supplier but abdicated that position to the Chinese. Rare earths provide a good lesson what happens when supply lines for vital minerals are disrupted: It jeopardizes a host of downstream economic activities.” Raulston said a February report by the firm KPMG noted that demand for metals and minerals is going to double over the next 20 years. “Supply disruptions, for whatever cause, will become more the norm if countries such as the U.S.—which has tremendous demands for these materials—do not do more to secure their own supplies,” she said. Raulston added that the supply situation for rare earths will improve as the Molycorp Minerals’ rare earth facility at Mountain Pass, Calif., comes online. However, she added that “much of the processing and magnate technology has already moved to China to be near supply sources. The U.S. needs a more coherent minerals policy overall—not just for rare earths. A whole host of minerals are projected to be at risk of supply shortages over the long term. Currently it takes 7–10 years to get a minerals mining permit in the U.S.—2 to3 times longer than Canada or Australia.” —Randy Showstack, Staff Writer
标签: 中国稀土
