Greer added that the Trump administration could still follow through on the new 100% tariffs on China, or implement them even sooner, but noted that “a lot depends on what the Chinese do.”
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday reportedly stated that China’s rare earth controls announced last week came “out of nowhere,” while expressing optimism about resolving the dispute with the Xi Jinping administration.
Speaking during an interview with CNBC, Greer described China’s rare earth controls as “completely disproportionate.” He added that the Trump administration could still follow through on the new 100% tariffs on China, or implement them even sooner, but noted that “a lot depends on what the Chinese do.”
“They are the ones who have chosen to make this major escalation,” Greer said. He defended the U.S.’s export controls on semiconductors, stating that every country has very specific export controls that are product-specific, company-specific, and sometimes country-specific.
“What the Chinese are doing is broad. It’s on the whole world… a broad range of products that contain a tiny 0.1% of it is rare earth materials, and they’re doing it to low-tech stuff. The rare earth materials here, these are things that the United States pioneered 60 years ago. It’s basic materials they’re trying to control,” Greer said in the interview.
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