This week, China banned exports of a number of crucial 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, reasonably than merely proscribing, supplies of strategic significance to the semiconductor, protection, and electrical car sectors, China has clearly crossed a brand new line within the long-simmering commerce conflict.
However on the similar time, it chosen minerals that received’t cripple any industries—which leaves China loads of ammunition to inflict higher 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.
—James Temple
This story is a part of our MIT Expertise Evaluation Explains sequence. Let our writers untangle the complicated, messy world of expertise that can assist you perceive what’s coming subsequent. You possibly can 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 Evaluation will unveil the 2025 checklist of 10 Breakthrough Applied sciences. Yearly, our newsroom seems to be 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 expect matter most proper now.
Within the meantime, listed below are three applied sciences that we thought-about together with on the 2025 checklist however finally determined to go away off. And though these nominees didn’t make the lower this 12 months, they’re nonetheless value maintaining a tally of. Learn the complete story.
