This week, China banned exports of a number of vital minerals to the US, marking the newest transfer in an escalating sequence of tit-for-tat commerce restrictions between the world’s two largest economies.
In explicitly chopping off, slightly than merely limiting, 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 conflict.
However on the identical time, it chosen minerals that received’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 determination, the way it impacts local weather tech and what’s more likely to occur subsequent.Â
—James Temple
This story is a part of our MIT Expertise Assessment Explains sequence. Let our writers untangle the complicated, messy world of know-how that can assist you perceive what’s coming subsequent. You may learn extra from the sequence right here.
3 issues that didn’t make the ten Breakthrough Applied sciences of 2025 checklist
Subsequent month, MIT Expertise Assessment will unveil the 2025 checklist of 10 Breakthrough Applied sciences. Yearly, our newsroom appears to be like throughout the fields we cowl for applied sciences which can be having a real breakthrough second. This annual package deal highlights the applied sciences that we expect matter most proper now.
Within the meantime, listed here are three applied sciences that we thought of together with on the 2025 checklist however finally determined to depart off. And though these nominees didn’t make the lower this yr, they’re nonetheless price keeping track of. Learn the total story.
