TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: We have lots of levers that we can pull for products that they need that could be equally damaging. We don’t want to damage their economy. We don’t believe that they want to damage ours. But they are a command-and-control economy, and they are going to neither command nor control us, and we’re going to assert sovereignty, so are the Western allies. And part of this investment boom that we’re seeing is President Trump wanted to reshore and part of the reshoring is strategic. So, we don’t want to decouple with China. I don’t believe they want to decouple, but this rare earth export control is a sign of decoupling.
SARA EISEN: But we need them, don’t we?
BESSENT: Sorry?
EISEN: We need those rare earth minerals, don’t we?
BESSENT: We do.
EISEN: I mean, that’s leverage that they have on us.
BESSENT: We have lots of leverage on them, too. We, unfortunately—
EISEN: We have semiconductors, right?
BESSENT: Aircraft engines, many, many, many minerals that are also important for their supply system. But you know, what we learned during COVID, COVID was a test run for what we’re seeing now in terms of bringing back strategic industries. So, we have this big investment boom, and I would say 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent of it is bringing back five to seven strategic industries that we need. You know, whether it’s pharma, whether it’s semiconductors, whether it’s shipbuilding, whether it’s steel and rare earths. So, you know, this rare earth problem was decades in the making. Every past administration should be ashamed. President Trump tried to solve it in his last term, and the environmentalists threw a fit. So here we are. But again, I’m optimistic. We are now communicating at very high levels.
