When President Donald Trump targeted China with sky-high tariffs in April, it set up a showdown testing which country could better absorb the economic fallout. For the U.S., the fallout came in the form of fewer and more expensive imports and, for China, it has meant idle factories and a shortage of dollars. China, however, holds a trump card: a monopoly on a variety of rare earths, or minerals that are critical to key American industries—including the defense sector, which needs those materials to make cutting edge fighter jets like the F-35.
“It’s the biggest gun they have to our heads,” says Evan Smith, CEO of Altana Technologies, which provides supply chain insights to a host of major companies. In the case of the F-35, the company recently created the following graphic, which shows how the planes rely on rare earths for everything from sensors to motors to thermal coating:
