Reports

Global value chains have been shrinking for a decade; the pandemic has only accelerated the process. Western countries are now racing to reshore parts of their strategic manufacturing and make supply chains more resilient. China, meanwhile, continues its quest for dominance and competes with the West for access to strategic ...

Securing the supply of materials that go into advanced technologies has become a political imperative around the world. Rare earth elements present the greatest risk, as China dominates their production. Europe is moving forward with plans for mining, partnerships and recycling, but is that enough to eliminate its geopolitical vulnerabilities?

For 45 years, governments have been pushing a transition from traditional cars to electric vehicles (EVs). Recently, this has taken the form of huge subsidies to the EV industry and smothering restrictions on carmakers. Yet, big hurdles remain, from China’s dominance of the battery market to pollution caused by electricity ...

Europe is on a mission to increase its production of batteries by establishing a foundation for large-scale supply chains on the continent. It is a tricky proposition, not least because it is an expensive plan to carry out and China already holds the dominant position. Success, however, could benefit a ...

China has recently hinted that it could use its stranglehold on the production and processing of rare earth elements to strike at the U.S. economy. The Trump administration has put forth several new initiatives for ending the U.S. reliance on rare earth imports from China and building a domestic supply ...

As President Evo Morales gears up to run for an unconstitutional fourth term, Bolivian politics enter a pivotal year. The last successful member of Latin America’s “pink wave” of leftist governments that rose to power on the commodities boom of the early 2000s must now deal with slumping hydrocarbon revenues ...

Midway through his term, Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera is facing resistance to his agenda from a hostile congress. His clumsy handling of several domestic crises has not helped his government gain traction. The economy is doing well, though, fueled by copper exports. But that poses a danger as well – ...

Slow at first to pick up on the disruptive nature of battery technology, Europe is now aiming to give the industry a boost. The U.S. and Asia, especially, have a head start. The stakes are high: if Europe loses out, not only could it suffer economically, it could also lose ...

Western industries are faced with a grave challenge: the exploding demand for rare metals and elements required by cutting-edge decarbonization and digitalization technologies could far outpace the projected growth in their supplies. Moreover, the global market for these raw materials is dominated by a handful of countries, and the usual ...

As new technologies grow in popularity, rare earths and other critical raw materials like lithium and cobalt are becoming crucial to the global economy. But their production is often concentrated in one or two countries, raising the risk that supply could be cut off suddenly. Perhaps most worrisome, China has ...

The unique chemical and physical properties of rare earth elements make many cutting-edge technologies possible. China is richly endowed with the resource and once attempted to corner the REEs market. Beijing’s predatory policy was thwarted by the WHO and the global economic slowdown, but the West’s efforts to develop alternative ...