China announced Tuesday it is banning exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, antimony and other key high-tech materials with potential military applications, as a general principle, lashing back at U.S. limits on semiconductor-related exports.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry announced the move after the Washington expanded its list of Chinese companies subject to export controls on computer chip-making equipment, software and high-bandwidth memory chips. Such chips are needed for advanced applications.
The ratcheting up of trade restrictions comes as President-elect Donald Trump has been threatening to sharply raise tariffs on imports from China and other countries, potentially intensifyi
Ah, so it’s not a matter of “that’s where the gallium is”, it’s “might as well buy it from China if they’re sellin’ it”, same as the dollar store
Edit: I wouldn’t be surprised if the places in the US producing high-quality gallium are using poor-quality Chinese gallium as feedstock though.
They are, but we have plenty of Zinc mining we can get it from ourselves. It’s just an economics matter, so we’d subsidize that. We only use enough to fill one truck load per year. So it’s likely we’d just get a defense contractor to do it and subsidize it