Rare Earths: A New Trade Battlefield
Olivier Weidenmann is a first year Politics and International relations student at UCL. Introduction October 30th, 2025, the press cabin of Air Force One outside of Busan, President Donald J. Trump triumphantly claims that the talks he had with the head of the Chinese state were “on a scale from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12." [1]. The reason behind this joy? Xi Jinping just accepted in principle to temporarily stop export controls on rare earths. One...
