The United States has discovered a novel way to deepen its reliance on China: bomb a country that's friends with China, then ask China for the minerals needed to make more bombs. As the U.S. works to rebuild its missile and munitions stockpiles after deploying many of them in the war with Iran, defense contractors find themselves in need of rare-earth minerals and magnets - the kind China dominates global production of.
China, never one to miss a leverage opportunity, has spent the past year tightening controls on those exports, cutting off foreign military-linked companies and pressuring the Trump administration. Last year, China deployed its mineral stranglehold as a bargaining chip until the U.S. agreed to reduce tariffs. Christopher Padilla, a former Bush administration trade official, notes that the U.S. decision to burn through precision munitions in Iran only increased that leverage. His summary: "Every missile fired at Iran makes us that much more dependent in the near term on China and its rare-earth minerals."
The Iran war is expected to loom over U.S.-China talks in Beijing this week. The U.S. wants China - a strategic partner of Iran - to help with negotiations, while the munitions drawdown raises awkward questions about America's ability to defend Taiwan or take on other military adventures. Defense Department and Congress estimates show the U.S. has deployed roughly half its long-range stealth cruise missiles and about 10 times the annual Tomahawk cruise missile production since the Iran war began in late February. So the immediate task is simply rebuilding - a task that, for now, requires a polite knock on Beijing's door.