This week, China banned exports of a number of vital minerals to the US, marking the newest transfer in an escalating collection of tit-for-tat commerce restrictions between the world’s two largest economies.
In explicitly chopping off, slightly than merely proscribing, supplies of strategic significance to the semiconductor, protection, and electrical automobile sectors, China has clearly crossed a brand new line within the long-simmering commerce warfare.
However on the identical time, it chosen minerals that gained’t cripple any industries—which leaves China loads of ammunition to inflict larger financial ache in response to any additional commerce restrictions that the incoming Trump administration could impose. Learn extra about what drove China’s choice, the way it impacts local weather tech and what’s prone to occur subsequent.
—James Temple
This story is a part of our MIT Expertise Evaluate Explains collection. Let our writers untangle the advanced, messy world of know-how that will help you perceive what’s coming subsequent. You possibly can learn extra from the collection right here.
3 issues that didn’t make the ten Breakthrough Applied sciences of 2025 listing
Subsequent month, MIT Expertise Evaluate will unveil the 2025 listing of 10 Breakthrough Applied sciences. Yearly, our newsroom seems throughout the fields we cowl for applied sciences which are having a real breakthrough second. This annual package deal highlights the applied sciences that we predict matter most proper now.
Within the meantime, listed below are three applied sciences that we thought-about together with on the 2025 listing however finally determined to depart off. And though these nominees didn’t make the lower this 12 months, they’re nonetheless value keeping track of. Learn the total story.