ECUADOR JUST CHANGED THE RARE EARTH GEOPOLITICAL GAME
If you've been watching the geopolitical rhetoric flying between incoming president-elect Trump, the outgoing Bai Den Jao regime, and its masters in Beijing, you might have come across the story about China suspending all trade in gallium and some other heavy metals to the USA amid Mr. Trump's "tough tariff talk". (I'd be tempted to coin yet another abbreviation to fill our vacant "communication" and say something like "hereinafter TTT shall stand for 'tough tariff talk'", but as most people know, I'm also AA, that is to say, "Against the Abbreviationism" that now passes for literate and informed communication in the United States.) Such rare earth minerals are crucial components in computer chips, and hence, drive much of the technology that makes the modern world work.
Well, K.M. spotted a statement on "X" by Ecuadorian President Bukele, and it may be the geopolitical-rare earth metals game changer of the decade, and perhaps of a few decades:
https://www.elsalvadornow.org/2024/12/06/nayib-bukele-el-salvador-has-various-metals-in-addition-to-gold-nayib-bukele-el-salvador-tiene-diversos-metales-ademas-de-oro/
Pay close attention to this one:
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, revealed that they have found at least 18 types of elements, some metallic, in the ground in his country, which he intends to extract to generate wealth and develop infrastructure projects in the country.
According to Bukele, whose party Nuevas Ideas (NI) has enough votes to repeal the mining ban at any moment, the Salvadoran territory would have, in addition to gold deposits, metals from the fourth and fifth “industrial revolution.”
He said that in their studies, they have identified cobalt, lithium, nickel, and “rare earths used for advanced electronics,” in addition to platinum, iridium, tantalum, titanium, gallium, and germanium, among others.
“We need to make a responsible exploitation of our natural resources, as all countries in the world do,” added Bukele, who cited Qatar, Israel, Canada, and Switzerland as examples, pointing out that “there is no country that has done something as foolish” as banning mining.
Of course, it will take time to begin mining operations, but the point is, President Bukele intends to do so, and as the article also makes clear, his political party, Nuevas Ideas, has the votes in the Ecuadorian parliament to do so.
This is where it is going to become very interesting, for in making his announcement, Mr. Bukele - who has shown himself to be a shrewd politician and a strong leader in fighting his country's criminal gangs - surely knows that he has just placed his small country front and center on the world's powers' geopolitical radar, for virtually every major economic power from Tokyo to Jakarta to New Delhi will be watching the development, and courting Ecuador, not the least of which, of course, will be China, for the very simple reason that China has at least at present a virtual monopoly on the world's production of many of these vital rare earth minerals.
Little Ecuador just became a competitor to great big and powerful China, and in doing so, a major security interest to the other Indo-Pacific powers, the "usual suspects": Japan, Indonesia, Australia, India, Myanmar, Thailand &c.
And of course the United States of America, which, rightly or wrongly, has an old established precedent that enables it to meddle in South American affairs, a thing called the "Monroe doctrine." The doctrine, for overseas readers who may not know of it, was named for President James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, but was in fact authored by John Quincy Adams who was the Secretary of State in the Monroe Administration. Basically the doctrine stated that, beyond any then-current colonial possessions in the western hemisphere, no European power may interfere in or topple the governments of any country in the western hemisphere, as the United States regarded all such countries as being within its sphere of influence, and that any such interference would thus be viewed by the United States as a hostile action.
The doctrine has been applied with mixed success, particularly during the American War Between the States, when the French Emperor Napoleon III installed the luckless Hapsburg Archduke Maximillian as Emperor of Mexico at the points of French bayonets, while the United States and Confederate States were busily engaged in a war with each other. But the doctrine said nothing prohibiting American influence, and no one was thinking of China at that time.
The long and short of it is, another major geopolitical and foreign policy issue has just surfaced for the incoming Trump Administration to deal with.
My speculation? Do not be a bit surprised if one of the first things Mr. Trump's administration will do is to negotiate some sort of trade and loan agreement with Ecuador to keep China out, and America in. Watch, perhaps, for a Trump "summit tour" in South America, with the big three, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil being on the bucket list. But now you can add Ecuador, and probably with it, Chile. And while we're at it, watch for some "initiatives" regarding Venezuela as well.
And mining and tunnel boring equipment? Funny... Germany makes a lot of that...
See you on the flip side...
(If you enjoyed today's blog, please share it with your friends.)
No comments:
Post a Comment