I'm here to talk about China strikes back man China has Decided that they are not going to take trumps tariffs lying down And so what they have done overnight is said that they're going to do tit for 34% for 34% across the board so We're putting 34% tariffs on Chinese goods. They're putting 34% tariffs on American goods now and because China has actual leadership that understands what they're doing. They went beyond that and they included a whole flu of things to do their Tariff retaliation package that actually make them look pretty freaking smart and are going to absolutely fuck the rest of us for the ongoing future. So here's what they did.
They put restrictions on importing US chicken and sorghum, which are big exports to China They have done this really interesting thing where they've identified 11 American corporations as Companies that will no longer be allowed to do business in China Because they're under such heightened scrutiny that everything they do will be watched by the Chinese government They also did this kind of brilliant thing where the one place that America still actually kind of outcompets the world is in medical imaging equipment China has basically just said all medical imaging equipment sales are going to go through special scrutiny now because they're looking to see if America has An unfair advantage in this market. So it's the kind of tactic that America would do to try not that is now being Retallated against us. So way to go Beijing But here's the thing that's really got me worked into a frenzy this morning This is the the whole reason that I wanted to do this live China in addition to everything else has said that they are going to severely restrict the exports of seven rare earth minerals and You know if you're like me you kind of hear this and maybe your eyes glaze over a little bit You think why do I care about rare earth minerals? But I did some research and I want to talk to you about what it means that Chinese restricting these seven rare earth minerals So first of all China's not the only place in the world that has these minerals They're not the only place in the world that minds these minerals They are however the only place in the world that refines these minerals and takes them and turns them into actually usable Product so by China restricting them from the United States They're essentially saying the US can't have access to these seven rare earth minerals from the one place in the world that actually produces them in usable quantities So let's talk about what some of those rare earth minerals are and I know this sounds like it could be boring But bear with me because I actually think this is really fascinating.
So the first one is called Sumarium, right? They all have great names. So this is gonna be fun. Sumarium is used.
Oh, let's see for high performance magnets in defense systems aerospace Missile guidance using nuclear reactors and it's used for special capacitors and lasers in electronics Huh sounds like it could be important, right? It's a bummer. We don't we don't get that anymore. Well, here's the next one Gattilinium, right awesome names.
Well, let's see Gattilinium is used for MRI contrast agents Remember I said just a couple minutes ago that China is looking into all high quality medical imaging equipment sales going into China now Where America is still actually kind of out of the world? Well, yeah, so Gattilinium is actually used in these devices and in The actual contrast agents that you use when you're doing MRI. So wait go China. It's a one-two punch So it's used in neutron radiography, right and shielding again in nuclear reactors.
It's used in alloy So Gattilinium is used in alloys that help improve the workability of Metals which obviously something high-tech economy like ours is very interested in here's the next one Turbium green phosphorous and screens like LED displays TVs and computer monitors. Oh my gosh China has just restricted our access to anything related to Turbium that could be used in computer monitors Huh, that seems like it could be really important, right again Turbium used in magnets high performance magnets EVs wind turbines electronics Gosh, these are all things that the United States would really like to produce on a massive scale But guess what we suddenly can't because China is restricting our ability to purchase usable refined Turbium. Here's here's my favorite one to pronounce Disbrosium that sounds very fancy, right high performance magnets again Evie monitors wind turbines military systems lasers Nuclear reactor control rods gosh It's almost like China targeted things that they knew we actually need to have a high-performing economy. Hmm.
Here's the next one This is fun when I probably get the pronunciation wrong Lutitium. It's used in medical imaging and cancer therapy Pet scans targeted radiography again things the United States is actually good at and can actually export China has restricted our access to Lutitium which is used to produce these things Lutitium is also used as a catalyst in cracking hydrocarbons and oil refining that might be something we're interested in doing in the future Donny think and again in phosphorous and scintillator specialized lighting and radiation detection equipment Again, it's like trying to thought about it. Here's the next one gandium It's used to make lightweight high-strength materials for aerospace military aircraft and sports equipment It uses a solid oxide in fuel cells. So I don't know fuel cells for batteries.
Maybe large batteries that go into electric vehicles perhaps again Scandium multiple uses used in metal halide lamps for lighting and here's number seven yitrium. It's used in phosphorous It's a key component in high-temperature superconductors. It's drinks in ceramics and glass and it's used in medical and dental tools So seven rare earth minerals that do exist elsewhere in the world They do get in mind elsewhere in the world But only China has the capacity right now to refine these seven minerals into usable states And they've just said in addition to the 34% retaliatory terrace in addition to the chicken and sorghum in addition to the 11 companies that are now Not allowed to do business in China in addition to the investigations into high quality medical imaging equipment China has said that these seven minerals are no longer allowed to be exported to the United States So why is apple stock absolutely freaking tanking right now in addition to the rest of the market? But Apple particularly down five and a quarter percent as of this moment well Gosh, it's because Apple uses absolutely all of these things in the production of iPhones and computers So think about this for a minute Apple needs these rare earth minerals to produce iPhones to produce the semiconductors and the high quality ceramic Class that goes on the front of your iPhone and the semiconductors that are actually powering your iPhone So they're paying a 34% tariff on all of the pieces of that to get manufactured in China Which is oh gosh 90% of Apple products right and now they're also saying China saying to the US We can't actually use the minerals that they have just restricted from us So they're analysts out there that are talking about potential price increases for iPhones, right?
You know what they said and iPhone currently goes for about a thousand dollars Oh look Apple just draw more now down down more than five and a half percent One analyst I've got some notes here that I'm looking at by the way because I want to bring you actual truth and information There's a guy named Dan eyes who does a lot of sort of market analysis around Apple and iPhones The most expensive iPhone or one of them are expensive iPhones currently goes for about a thousand bucks Dan I was saying that thanks to all of these tariffs and rare earth mineral restrictions that China's put in place You could potentially see an iPhone that currently sells for a thousand bucks selling for $3,500 a two or three times increase in the overall price of an iPhone imagine that for computer monitors and computers and chips and Basically everything that we currently rely on for a high-tech economy This same thing is going to be impacting imagine the iPhone is going to go from a thousand bucks to $3,500 bucks imagine what your TV screens and computer monitors are going to do Dana Dubon I did a live last night with the awesome Frederick poet and he was talking about this the fact that you know no TVs produced in the United States now They're all produced overseas a lot of them produced in China All of those prices are going to double triple maybe even quadruple under these tariffs so the supply chain is you that Apple and other high-tech companies faces even worse because not only are they dealing with the The impacts of these China tariffs, but they've tried to build out some some flexibility in their supply chains Right big lesson from the pandemic for all of us build flexibility into your supply chain well Apple has tried to do that Unfortunately, they did it in countries like Vietnam and India that are also facing 46% and 27% tariffs Thanks to Trump. So this is just one example of what what is happening in the markets today? What is happening with the tariffs and the impact of what Trump has done to us? There's a great article I'm gonna write all this up and when I post this live I'm gonna include a bunch of these links if you haven't read the Jonathan V last article called the American Ages over in the bulwark You really need to read it because it is it is sobering and I think it is true and maybe even an understatement of what we're in for The last 80 years we've been living under have been called the Pax Americana, right?
Because it was under the offices of the US and the US governments which just whether they were Republican or Democrat all pretty much adhered to kind of the You know, Bretton Woods post World War two Dollar is the global reserve currency shape of the world and Trump has just blown all of that up completely and what it means is Not only are we going to feel pain as Americans in the immediate term because I don't know if I mentioned this at the top of going live Goldman Sachs has just upgraded our chances of going into a recession from 20% to 35% JP Morgan said hold my beer and said that our chances of going into a recession now are 60% So we're pretty much looking at an immediate onset of a recession It's gonna impact our prices on everything thanks to the tariffs and across the spectrum right across the supply chain across The level and quality of good So the two things that you're used to getting from Walmart and Target and Amazon aren't gonna be cheap anymore and the expensive things that we're used to having access to are also going to see massive prices like iPhones going from a thousand bucks to 3,500 bucks and another thing that Frederick said last night on the lines that we did together we've become very custom as Americans to this kind of cornucopia of Plenty in our grocery stores where it doesn't matter fruits and vegetables or in season or out of season We're used to having things kind of whenever we want them. Well, that's all can go away The the bulwark article that Jonathan last put out kind of talks about how everything is is ending everything that we Thought that we had become used to over these last 80 years is essentially going to end and we are going to watch ourselves Watch our country slide from a position of global Premisee where we could dictate the prices and values and international agreements on things to a place where those prices are going to be Detated to us one of the worst things that could happen to us as a nation and sorry I'm being a bit Nationalistic here right I'm thinking about it from an American point of view part of the part of what we have enjoyed over the course of the last 80 years is the United States having Global supremacy as the dollar being the global reserve currency right so what that meant is global transactions for the last 80 years Have been denominated in dollars regardless of this the United States is the country of the transaction This is most prevalent in things like oil trading. So we heard the term petro dollar before that's basically the fact that in all oil transactions are enumerated in dollars and the global reserve currency is not a real risk of being passed from the dollar to some other currency Whether it's you know the Chinese running by or god knows Russian rubles who has any idea at this point who else it could be It's just that many many countries would love to see America's global dollar hegemon fall and have the global reserve currency be passed to another nation The thing that's really sad to think about here is this was all predicted It was all predictable. It was all said in the run-ups of the campaign Everybody knew that this was a possibility that the things were seen enacted now Were a possibility if Trump got back into office.
Well, he's back in office. I'm I'm so mad my little bells palsy, right? I live won't open all the way so in case you're wondering I'm not drunk I just had those balls of years ago and I can't open my right eye all the way Especially when I'm angry and I'm angry right now because all of this was preventable We could have stopped all of this any of this anywhere along the way and we didn't every Republican who has gone along with this is Complicit in the downfall of America the end of the Pax Americana and we need to hold those people accountable as soon as we can So we've had some special elections already We need to get out there and organize and vote and protest into everything we can including calling Republicans who are currently sitting in Congress Because we absolutely have got to get them out and tech writer. I see what you're saying I I think we need to admit the possibility that Donald Trump is not just a Russian plant and working the will the the whims of Vladimir Putin But that the absolute goal of this administration is to crash the American economy So freaking flat that they think they can do some kind of grand restart But the problem is they're fucking dumb and they don't know what they're doing the math that they did for these tariffs is idiot math It's like they asked to chat GPT to come up with a tariff percentages for them And they're so bad and dumb that they didn't realize that what they were doing was dividing the current outstanding trade balance against imports It's not that's not actually a tariff percentage, but they're so dumb They think they can crash the American economy and then I don't know do some kind of magic emergency hyperspace restart there's like a big red button they think they can push it's gonna restart the American economy and make it go into hyperflight Yeah, that's not fucking real.
That's not actually a plan. That's that's one of those, you know Three step plans where step number two is a bunch of question marks It is wall wall Washington dead so my great friends Josh and Susan started brewery and walla walla called five dollar ranch If you're in walla go visit them. They're absolutely phenomenal their liberals You can talk to them safely about politics like this even though the rest of all is maybe not so much like that Plus they make amazing beer. So go to five dollar ranch and walla walla Thanks for thanks for noticing that dad.
But back to my point I think they're absolutely crashing the American economy on purpose They think they have a plan they don't and we are seeing in real time What is happening with that right now in the stock market because Trump put this idiot tariff blanket tariffs around the world based on bad math And China has just called his bluff and said Okay, we see you we're gonna do exactly reciprocal blanket tariffs and we're also gonna be really targeted and smart and we are going to come drive a knife into the heart of American technology the American tech industries and That is why apple stock is collapsing along with a lot of other stuff right now Textdocs are gonna take a beating. We are seeing the end of the American hedge a month Which some people might celebrate and I can certainly understand that perspective But we are seeing the end of the past Americana we are seeing the end of America being a force for good a force for growth a force for economic prosperity A force for peace we're seeing seeing the end of all of that right now and we're actually watching it happen in our stock market as we speak So I've got more than I could say about this whole thing. You can tell I'm worked up Part of me is sort of proud of China for targeting their their tariffs So specifically it shows that their head is in the game and they actually know what they're doing But it just speaks to the level of idiocy and ignorance and sheer fucking willful stupidity on the part of the Trump administration That they didn't see this coming because anybody could have seen this coming and Trump tweeted this morning like oh China blink And that's the wrong thing. They you know, haha.
We've got him now. No, no Donald. You don't have China now They've got us they've got us by the fucking short and curlies and they see what the American economy is based on and they have come straight At the heart of American tech industries and agriculture and they are going to be certain that we feel the pain We're all gonna feel that pain together and I think we need to organize and figure out what we do Frederick has said really smart things in the past about you know starting a tea party wing of the Democratic Party calling it the common-sense party I think we should create sort of a right-left coalition, you know, and everybody is welcome coalition Where what we want is common sense, right? Like the common sense Tea party version basically that unites everybody across the spectrum If you want stable American economy, that's just common sense If you want American corporations to stand up for what's right in our current in our current government They should want that right the capitalism the system of capitalism that we are engaged in currently that marries democracy and capitalism so tightly together basically Needs the American economy to be stable and growing so these corporations can gain They should want American consumers to feel confident in the economy and to have enough money in their pocketbooks that they could spend things spend money on things like cars and iPads and Movies and whatever else we're not in that place right now.
We need to organize We need to bring corporations into this. We need to bring people from the right and the left together We need to start talking about common sense. We need to talk about Everything that we can do as Americans together regardless of past party or past view if you are for the Constitution and you are for the American economy And you are for the American consumer and the American farmer and the American machinist and the American social worker and the American teacher You're for all of those people come join whatever common sense thing we're putting together and let's actually get the assholes who are in Congress pulled together and Get all those people voted out of office as quickly as possible so that we can replace them with people who actually have common sense ideas and Cross-party ideas that are going to get us out of this disaster Trump has just thrown us into a pit and said that we are you know going to be better off for being in this pit and that when we get Out of the pit everything's going to be shiny sparkly fancy all better the American economy is gonna be number one No, we're just in a fucking pit He throws into a pit and he doesn't know how to get us out And so now he's standing up at the top of the pit picking his nose like a fucking idiot And he's going to absolutely destroy the American economy and China has basically just called his bluff and he doesn't know what to do about it other than Rage tweet so this is it. This is it.
We should set up a world zoom I mean how do we do that can we get zoom to create a you know massive million person room because that's what I think we need We need just get everyone on the same page and say it is common sense. We do it if it's not common sense I don't care. We're not doing it right now We're only focused on getting ourselves out of this trouble that Trump has gotten us into so I can rain about this all day I've got other things I need to do today. I'm sure that you do too I will post this with links to everything that I've talked about please do think about those seven rare earth minerals the China exclusively has the refining capacity for and start thinking about all of the places where we're not gonna have access to those minerals and If we don't have that goes to those minerals It means that the American economy is basically going to crash your iPhone It's gonna go from being a thousand bucks to being 3,500 bucks and all of the smart bombs and Nuclear reactor stuff and you know high definition medical imaging equipment everything that is produced with those materials We no longer have access to those materials.
We can't produce them Trump has put a dagger Thanks to these Chinese responses a dagger into the heart of the American tech industry And we need to be screaming about that from the rooftops not because the tech industry is great But because we need to fight back for sanity again, I'm gonna go ahead and jump off now I'll post this I'll include links. Please dig into what China has just done Yeah, Elon Musk is gonna suffer too. Maybe most especially and that's a great case of karma But we shouldn't be paying his karma on our backs We use your stuff for it alone So I can't celebrate that Elon Musk is gonna suffer if the rest of us are going to you know be digging in the dirt for worms to eat Thanks, everybody. I hope you have a great day.
Talk to you again soon. Good luck and God bless the United States. We're gonna need it. Bye