“Trump might end up getting less than he bargained for. Estimates of Ukraine’s supposed mineral wealth are based on outdated Soviet-era surveys that didn’t take into account the viability or cost of developing them.
The latest draft of the agreement, cited by Ukrainian newspaper Economic Pravda, would see Kyiv pay 50 percent of revenues from its state-owned natural resources into a fund that would invest in Ukraine. There would be no U.S. security guarantees in return.”
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“Though the country reports more than 20,000 surveyed mineral deposits and sites, only around 8,000 of them have been assessed as viable. Of these, fewer than half were being exploited before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.”
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“China — which processes nearly 90 percent of rare earths worldwide — holds a “near monopoly” over this step in the supply chain, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Most major rare earth producers, including the U.S., lack the domestic know-how or infrastructure needed to refine the minerals, forcing them to rely on Beijing.
Developing infrastructure to do so in Ukraine would, even with U.S. investment, take years and would likely be less efficient than shipping the minerals to China for processing.”
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“Add to this investment the billions of dollars required to clear land of mines and explosives — which could take over a decade — and to rebuild essential infrastructure to sustain the mining sector, from roads to power plants.”
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“Several promising prospects are located in territories under Russian occupation.”
“President Donald Trump pledged Thursday to enforce his planned 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting March 4, after both were put on pause earlier this month.
“We cannot allow this scourge [of drugs] to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday morning.
Trump also promised to levy an additional 10 percent tariff on China starting the same date.”
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“Trump has already imposed 10 percent tariffs on China after the leaders were unable to stave off a deadline earlier this month”
“the way we think about how China would overrun Taiwan may well be wrong. Rather than an all-out invasion, it could attempt to capture the island without firing a single shot through “gray zone” tactics. Such tactics might combine maritime blockades and advanced cyberwarfare capable of cutting off Taiwan from the lines of seaborne trade and the digital access it needs to survive. And Beijing could do so in a way that might be just far enough below the threshold of conflict that would drive Washington and its allies to come to Taiwan’s aid.”
“The economic uncertainty created by Trump’s tariff threats has already warped markets and harmed the economy in ways large and small.”
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“Uncertainty created by Trump’s trade policies reduced aggregate U.S. investment by as much as $47 billion in 2018, according to a 2020 study in the Journal of Monetary Economics.
The authors of that paper wrote that “all measures suggest that uncertainty about trade policy has recently shot up to levels not seen since the 1970s.” They concluded that “both higher expected tariffs and increased uncertainty about future tariffs deters investment.””
“These tariffs will protect American steelmakers and aluminum manufacturers from competition but at the expense of other American manufacturers that buy steel and aluminum to produce finished goods.
Unfortunately, there are a lot more jobs in the latter camp than in the former.”
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“The Peterson Institute for International Economics calculated that the costs of Trump’s 2018 steel tariffs totaled about $650,000 per job created. If this is an economic development scheme for American manufacturing, it’s a pretty terrible one.
Farther downstream, consumers will be hurt too. When Trump hiked tariffs on steel and aluminum imports during his first term, those import duties translated into price increases of 2.4 percent for steel and 1.6 percent for aluminum, according to a 2023 study by the U.S. International Trade Commission.
That might not sound like a lot, but there are several reasons to expect a more significant hit this time around.
For one, Trump is now raising tariffs on both metals to 25 percent. His first-term tariffs were 25 percent on steel but only 10 percent on aluminum.
The impact of the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term was also blunted by the wide variety of carve-outs and loopholes that the administration created. Companies affected by the tariffs could apply for exemptions—and the process for deciding who got those breaks was, unsurprisingly, opaque and political.”
“The U.S. is the second-largest steel importer in the world, according to the International Trade Administration. In 2023, the U.S. imported 25.6 million metric tons of steel and exported a little more than 8.2 million metric tons. About half of the aluminum used domestically is imported and by global standards, the U.S. has a very small aluminum smelting industry. Steel and aluminum imports to the U.S. were valued at nearly $50 billion in 2024, per Bloomberg.”
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“Imposing levies on steel and aluminum will increase costs for domestic energy projects (which will be passed on to consumers) while hamstringing America’s energy dominance. In recent years, high material costs (and burdensome regulations) have led to cancellations or price tag hikes for offshore wind energy, advanced nuclear power, and transmission line projects. Instead of building oil pipelines to the U.S., these trade barriers could also incentivize Canadian energy companies to invest in other markets, such as Japan, says Wayne Winegarden, an economist at the Pacific Research Institute, a free market think tank. “This really is one of the dumbest things we could be doing,” Winegarden tells Reason.
Importantly, these tariffs won’t accomplish Trump’s stated goal of “making America rich again.”
A study from the International Trade Commission found tariffs on steel (25 percent) and aluminum (10 percent) implemented during the first Trump administration decreased production and increased costs in downstream industries that use these materials by 0.6 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. Total production in downstream industries was $3.5 billion less in 2021 because of these tariffs. The Tax Foundation estimates that repealing tariffs and their quotas would increase long-run gross domestic product by $3.5 billion and create thousands of jobs.”
We need to maintain and grow connections between the U.S. and China. Chinese immigrants and students are not just a nice thing, they improve relations and the immigrants make America stronger diplomatically and economically.
“President Donald Trump on Thursday signed his plan for reciprocal tariffs but delayed their implementation as his administration launches negotiations on a one-by-one basis with nations that could be impacted.
“The Plan shall ensure comprehensive fairness and balance across the international trading system,” read the memorandum signed by Trump.
The studies of each country could be completed by April 1, incoming Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday while standing at Trump’s side, adding that then “we’ll hand the president the opportunity” to start implementing them as soon as on April 2.”
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“Nations from India to Brazil to South Korea have long charged higher average duties on various goods and will clearly be in the middle of coming talks.
Trump’s memo Thursday outlined how non-tariff barriers, such as the VAT, would also be subject to reciprocity.
“For purposes of this United States Policy, we will consider Countries that use the VAT System, which is far more punitive than a Tariff, to be similar to that of a Tariff,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday.
That issue is likely to be a sizable stumbling block in relations with the European Union.”
LC: VATs are applied to domestic products and imports, so treating a VAT like an import tariff that is just applied to the import, makes no sense.