Metals Crucial to Clean Energy Are Getting Caught Up in the US–China Trade War
1 min read
Summary
China recently banned the export of gallium and germanium and the US may expand its production of the two metals as a result.
While US firms could benefit from an end to Chinese dominance of the supply chain for the metals, which are used in semiconductors and fibre optic cables, a potential trade war with Canada, which also produces the materials, could impede this effort.
Canada’s the only industrial-scale producer of gallium in North America, with its only source being Neo Performance Materials, and Teck Resources is the only large scale producer of germanium in the country.
It is unclear whether Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Canadian imports will come to fruition.
Germany and the US are also looking at ways to increase their domestic supply of the metals.
