These rare-earths embargos are going to cause so many shakeups of western-aligned governments, alienating their domestic capitalists from the pro-US ruling parties.

The US cannot transmute USD into rare-earth minerals, and these countries are going to have to come down from the clouds to reality, and either pick China over the US, or accept ruin of their economies.

Exactly, China controls the material base and the Americans can't money print their way out of this.

The US can attempt an invasion of Canada, though.

they can also coup latin america for it's reserves.

Yttrium’s most critical use is in thermal barrier coatings that protect jet engines from extreme heat, as well as in in heat-resistant coatings for semiconductor manufacturing tools, ceramics, phosphors and lasers.

the shovel makers won't be happy about this.

Didn't really work last time did it

True as well, but afaik, Canada has a considerably large amount of proven RE reserves, basically the most after China and Russia.

My numbers there might be slightly off, but I'd be thinking Central and South America would be primarily getting couped for oil or perhaps farm/pasture land.

What is RE in this context? I genuinely have never have heard of it before

Rare earth as in rare earth metals I'd assume based on context.

Hahaha face-palm

Yes, yeah, sorry, im just lazy at typing lol

Doesn't Brazil have the most after China?

https://rare-earth-mining.com/top-10-rare-earth-reserves-by-country/

If this is accurate, then yes, you are evidently correct, and I did not know that.

So thanks for spurring me to look into it!

If I'm understanding this right, Canada likely has more than Brazil overall, but Brazil's are proven, located, and extraction is more mature, whereas Canada's are still in the exploration phase, thus are not yet proven.

No glowing neon crystals for you

The bottleneck is refining capacity, not ore. A bunch of countries have rare earths, but only China has the factories, skilled workforce and scientists.

This is also true and very immediately relevant for the near/medium term.

But, if the US as a state/cabal of rulers is even still at all capable of long term planning, presumably they would realize the near medium and long term... 'problems' that could be 'solved' by at least starting the process of controlling the territory with the thing they need now and almost certainly will need in the future.

I mean this is simplifying but think of it like iron in a civilization game. Its a critical strategic resource... very likely 'worth' fighting over, unless you are exceedingly competent in many other realms of statecraft.

There's no near term solution to the problem.

Unlike a strategy game where you can just seize a strategic resource and immediately begin using it, in the real world it would be many years or possibly even decades after seizing a territory before they'd be able to actually get any use out of it. Everything from finding workers to developing infrastructure to buying insurance becomes really hard once a territory becomes disputed.

mmm tasty ytrium

I agree with all that.

But we are both, or each, more rational than rabid US Christian Fascists and Neoliberal Zionist/Corporate Fascists.

As I think is well evidenced by the US's objectively delusional uh, 'foreign policy stance', toward Iran.

There's no way to maintain the empire and also preserve access to China's minerals. They either need to capitulate and negotiate with China (unacceptable because it ends their domination) or they need to start a war to occupy strategic resources (which we both agree won't work). Their fascism is actually a response to the irreversible decline of their empire, it's the only choice remaining that doesn't involve admitting defeat.

It only delays the inevitable, but it does delay it. This is where the gerontocracy plays a role: it's rational for an 80+ imperialist to delay the decline of the empire, because when it inevitably implodes they'll be dead anyway and they hate their children so who cares?

That's why the US wanted Bolsonaro in.

In addition to what queermunist said, the US is an ideologically capitalist country. It is unwilling to do things that may seem socialist even if the benefits are clear. And only a state-owned or state-backed enterprise would be willing to pour in decades of investment (read: net loss) before they are in a position to sell their products.

Also, China can partially or completely drop export controls at any time. And most civilian industrial users of rare earths are Chinese companies. (The civilian market is much bigger than the military one.) Chinese factories are more automated and have shorter supply chains, and so would be able to sell their rare earths cheaper than US ones. So a Western company would be risking not even getting a payout at the end of these decades of investment.