Rare

Greenland has 1.5 million tons of rare earths. The problem is that there are no roads to get to them.

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The geopolitics of the 21st century has found a new and icy epicenter. After the capture of Nicolás Maduro In Venezuela earlier this month, Donald Trump’s administration has turned its diplomatic aggressiveness northward. The goal It’s an old longingtake control of Greenland, which the White House defines as an “ingot” of strategic resources. However, the physical reality is inescapable since beneath a complex geology lies an absolute lack of basic infrastructure that turns any extraction plan into a logistical chimera. The 93-mile wall of asphalt. Since the Republican Party introduced the Make Greenland Great Again Act In 2025, pressure on Denmark has escalated to even suggesting the use of force. As explained by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)Washington has elevated Greenland to the category of “national security” need. This position, which some analysts already call the “Donroe Doctrine”, seeks to secure the hemisphere as an exclusive sphere of influence against Russian icebreakers and Chinese expansion. But obsession collides with engineering. According to CSIS dataGreenland—a territory three times the size of Texas—only has 93 miles (150 kilometers) of roads in total. There are no railways and the settlements are isolated from each other by land. Diogo Rosa, researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, warns in Fortune that any mining project must create these accessibilities from scratch. This includes ports capable of handling industrial volumes (Narsaq port barely moves 50,000 tons a year) and local power plants, since the current electrical grid is unable to sustain a large scale mine. The enigma of eudialite. Even if roads were built to reach neodymium and terbium, the mineral itself poses an unprecedented technical challenge. Greenland’s rare earth elements are typically encapsulated in a complex type of rock called eudialite. Unlike carbonatites that are mined elsewhere in the world with proven methods, no one has developed a profitable process to extract them from eudialite, as explained by analysts. For this reason, experts like Javier Blas describe the enthusiasm of the Trump administration as a “Optimistic PowerPoint”. Blas maintains that the island is not a Wonderland of raw materials: if after decades of exploration no large mining company has operated successfully, it is because the processing costs—which would exceed 1 billion dollars—devour any profits. Added to this is that deposits as Kvanefjeld They are co-located with radioactive uranium, which has generated massive social rejection and environmental laws that block the projects. The mirage of mining wealth. Currently, Greenland only has two active mines: an anorthosite mine and the Nalunaq gold mine. The latter, operated by the Canadian Amaroq Minerals, managed to produce 6,600 ounces of gold in 2025, exceeding its own forecasts. But as Scott Dunn, CEO of Noveon Magnetics, points out, in Fortunethe success of gold (a high-value, low-volume mineral) is not scalable to rare earths. While Washington makes long-term plans in the Arctic, companies like Dunn’s are already producing magnets in Texas with materials sourced outside China, demonstrating that the solution to technological supply could be closer to home than the Polar Circle. The China factor: the silent owner. The great strategic obstacle to the “Donroe Doctrine” is not only the ice, but that Beijing is already there. China controls near the 90% of global supply of rare earths and has known how to play its cards in the Greenlandic subsoil through litigation. The company Energy Transition Minerals (ETM), with significant Chinese capital, holds an arbitration international against Greenland, demanding historic compensation of $11.5 billion — four times the island’s GDP — following the ban on uranium mining in 2021. This legal dispute places the island in a geopolitical clamp: Washington wants control to expel Beijing, but the latter is already blocking the richest deposits through business actions and prior exploitation rights. The navigable Arctic: an unexpected ally? Paradoxically, the hoax Climate change is what is accelerating the White House’s plans. Greenland is warming much faster than the rest of the planet, and melting ice is transforming the Arctic into a strategic trade corridor. As the New York Times reportsthe Polar Silk Road is no longer a projection: in October 2025, a Chinese ship reached Great Britain from the north in just 20 days, saving 40% of the time compared to the Suez Canal. This new connectivity turns Greenland into an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the middle of new sea routes. However, sea ice melting does not solve the problem on land. In the north of the island, extreme weather continues to force any mining machinery to hibernate for six months a year, maintaining profitability like an “optical illusion.” The treasure behind the ice wall. The attempt to take control of Greenland seems to hit a wall of environmental laws, hostile geology and, above all, a total absence of basic infrastructure. The Trump administration has invested hundreds of millions in mining companies, but the results remain buried under layers of permafrost. As Anthony Marchese summarizes in Fortune: “If you go to Greenland for its minerals, you’re talking about billions of dollars and an extremely long time.” While the White House sells the island as the definitive trophy of the new technological Cold War, the technical reality of 2026 dictates a simpler sentence: the island’s greatest treasure remains protected not by weapons or treaties, but by the lack of a road that reaches it. Image | Unsplash Xataka | The US has decided that Europe is its problem in Greenland. Germany wants to convince him that the problem is Russia

The United States knows that Venezuela’s subsoil is full of rare earths. The big problem is that he doesn’t know where

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The announcement that American companies could access to Venezuela’s vast oil has reignited a much broader ambition of Donald Trump’s administration. Because the Latin American nation has something that Washington desperately seeks, something that China he has plenty. He crux It’s how and how much. Beyond crude oil. Yes, the “b” side of the North American “landing” in Venezuela also seeks to explore the mineral potential of the country as part of “the national security of the United States.” The experts they point out that, in addition to crude oil, there would be unverified reserves of critical minerals and possible large quantities of rare earths, key inputs for defense and technology. However, the lack of reliable data, doubts about economic viability and operational risks in areas with the presence of armed groups and mining illegality turn the objective into an enterprise. much more complex that the oil reopening itself, with significant environmental impacts associates to energy-intensive mining. The supply chain and the bottleneck. Even if the extraction obstacles were overcome, the decisive challenge appears in processing. The refining of rare earths is concentrated in more than 90% in Chinaa domain constructed for decades through subsidies, industrial expansion and lax environmental regulations. This position has made rare earths a sensitive point of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, with export controls that have highlighted the fragility of American supply chains. The consensus among analysts is that this industrial and geopolitical advantage cannot be reversed quickly, so new deposits without their own refining capacity would contribute little to short-term strategic resilience. Why it is important. It we have counted other times. The classification of “critical minerals” covers a broad set of raw materials essential for the economy and security, from aluminum and copper to a specific group of 17 elements known as rare earths, essential for high-performance magnets, advanced electronics and military systems. Although these elements are not scarce in the Earth’s crust, their extraction and refining are technically demanding and expensive. In the United States there are efforts to develop domestic capabilities, but start-up times are often measured in years or decades, which explains the temptation to look for external solutions that, in practice, rarely offer immediate results. Geological potential and structural limits. It happens that, unlike other countries with confirmed reserves, Venezuela does not appear in international lists as a relevant producer of rare earths, an explained absence for decades of opacity institutional during the governments by Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro. Still, the country is believed to host deposits of coltan and bauxitesources of metals considered critical such as tantalum, niobium, aluminum and gallium. Projects like the Orinoco Mining Arc They sought to capitalize on that potential, but have been marked by illicit mining, lack of investment, a shortage of qualified labor, and a volatile regulatory environment that discourages international operators. A strategic mirage in the medium term. If you like, the final evaluation of the experts is clear: although the Venezuelan subsoil may hide valuable resources, its contribution to the security of supply of the United States it would be marginal on the near horizon. Without solid geological data, without security guarantees and without processing capacity independent of the Chinese circuit, Venezuela’s mineral interest seems more an extension of the geopolitical pulse than a practical solution, at least in the short term. In that context, the American bet faces a paradox: the country offers a lot on paper, but little that can be translated into real advantages over the next decade. Image | Mauricio CampelloRawPixel In Xataka | The US did not need to shoot to enter Caracas. All it took was an invisible weapon and unexpected “help” from Russia In Xataka | While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

the first pilot line to recycle rare earth magnets

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Europe has learned an uncomfortable lesson in recent years: the energy transition does not depend only on political will or investments in renewables, but on materials that it does not control. After achieving —not without difficulties— reduce its dependence on Russian gas, the European Union is facing now to a deeper, more structural vulnerability: China’s near-absolute dominance over critical metals and, in particular, rare earth permanent magnets. Without these magnets there are no electric cars, no wind turbines, no advanced robotics, nor much of the defense industry. However, France has taken a step that goes beyond political discourse and can turn the tables. The inauguration of a pioneering pilot line. The Orano group and the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) inaugurated at the CEA-Liten facilities in Grenoble, a pilot line dedicated to the recycling and remanufacturing of high-performance permanent magnets from rare earths. As Orano explained, The infrastructure has a pilot capacity of up to four tons and is equipped with technologies representative of an industrial scale, operated by a joint Orano–CEA team. The technical results of the project are expected by the end of 2026, with a view to subsequent large-scale implementation by an external industrial operator. A response to a critical dependency. The importance of the project goes far beyond its technical dimension. Permanent magnets based on neodymium-iron-boron have become key pieces for the European industrial future, but today the EU matters more than 95% of those you need. and the demand it doesn’t stop growing: The market has grown from around 250,000 tonnes of magnets this year to around 350,000 in 2030, with a growing proportion of high-performance applications. The problem is not only volume, but control of the value chain. China not only concentrates a good part of the world reserves of rare earthsbut between 70% and 90% of its processing and up to 99% in the case of heavy rare earths. This gives it a capacity for geopolitical pressure that has already translated into export restrictions and real supply interruptions for European industries. In this context, the Grenoble pilot line is fully part of the Critical Raw Materials Actwhich sets the goal that at least 25% of critical raw materials are recycled in Europe by 2030. “Short circuit” recycling. This is what the technological core of the project is called. Unlike traditional recycling – the so-called “long loop” – this approach allows rare earths to be recovered directly in metallic form from magnets at the end of their useful life, without going through complex chemical steps of dissolution, reoxidation and reconstitution. “This recycling offers an optimal compromise between magnetic performance, circularity and decarbonization,” explains Benoît Richebé, project manager for Rare Earths and Magnet Recycling at Orano, in statements collected by El Periódico de la Energía. The approach allows critical metals to be directly reused and reconstructed new high-performance magnets, suitable for demanding applications such as electric vehicle traction motors or offshore wind turbines. Orano defends, however, a hybrid approach. According to Richebé, short loop and long loop recycling are complementary, and Europe must be able to have both to build a flexible and resilient industry. The mixture of secondary raw materials with new alloys ensures maximum technical performance. Beyond the pilot. Currently, the recycling rate of rare earth magnets in Europe is just 1%, according to data cited by the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA). For years, the combination of low prices for Chinese primary products and irregular availability of waste has slowed the development of a large-scale recycling industry. However, how RawMaterials collectsthe largest magnet recycling plant in Eastern Europe, operated by Heraeusand in the south of France the company Caremag plans to establish a rare earth recycling and refining plant in the coming years. However, here comes the key point: the Orano and CEA project is also supported by two collaborative consortia financed by France and the European Union —Magellan 1 and Magnolia 2—, which develop complementary technologies for the manufacture of magnets from recycled critical metals. One of the differentiating elements of the project is the application of Orano’s nuclear know-how to the magnets industry: powder metallurgy, processes in controlled atmospheres, sintering and management of highly regulated facilities. Experiences accumulated in plants such as Orano Melox, dedicated to nuclear fuel recycling, are now transferred to a key sector for electrification. A crack in the monopoly. France is not going to compete with China in production volume of rare earths or magnets in the short term. But with this pilot line, something perhaps more important has begun to be disputed: the control of industrial knowledge and processes. As Benoît Richebé summarizes“mastering the recycling of magnets will be essential for the ecological, digital and technological transitions.” It is not just about materials, but about industrial sovereignty. If the pilot meets its objectives and the processes are successfully transferred to an industrial scale, Europe could recover part of a value chain that it lost decades ago. In a world where critical metals have become instruments of power, recycling magnets is not just an environmental solution: it is a strategic act. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Europe no longer depends on Russian gas: it depends on something more difficult to replace

hundreds of tons of rare earths

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During World War II, Nazi Germany built hundreds of bomb shelters as defensive frameworks of the Third Reich to protect the civilian population and critical infrastructure from Allied bombing. After the war, most were abandoned and passed for marginal uses until, decades later, one of them was converted into a high security warehouse. From war to the strategic reserve. At some undisclosed point in Frankfurt, a World War II anti-aircraft bunker, one of those concrete colossi that for decades were urban ruins or spaces converted to leisurehas acquired a new silent feature and deeply political: hosting one of the largest European warehouses of rare earths and critical metals. In the midst of a deterioration in global trade and with Europe facing a strategic dependence that I had been ignoring for years, this underground refuge has been transformed into an extreme security deposit for materials without which modern industry simply does not function. The Chinese shock and the race. The rbunker activation It is not coincidental. Since China tightened in Aprilus restrictions to the export of rare earths and strategic metals (in response to US tariffs), European inventories have remained below minimum. Tradium, one of the two large German importers of these materials, began to buy back stock to private investors and redistribute them directly to European companies in key sectors such as automotive, electronics, energy or defense. The move is reminiscent of a war economy in slow motion: it is not about speculation, but about surviving a prolonged supply disruption. An armored warehouse. The old bunker, renovated since 2011 after the first major warning from Beijing with the embargo on Japan over the Senkaku Islands, offers more than 2,400 square meters storage with different levels of security, protected by solid walls, cameras, opaque blinds and a four-ton armored door that gives access to a windowless chamber. Nikkei counted Inside, hundreds of blue and green drums loaded with neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium or terbium (all of Chinese origin) are lined up along with specialized metals such as gallium, germanium, indium, antimony, rhenium or hafnium. In total, some 300 tons that Tradium It is considered the largest known stock in Europe, although it admits that even larger and more discrete reserves may exist outside its knowledge. Skyrocketing prices. The impact of the chinese lock It is starkly reflected in the prices. Dysprosium has exceeded 900 dollars per kilomore than triple that before the restrictions, while terbium is around the 3,700 dollarsabout four times its previous value. Both are essential for improving the thermal resistance of electric motor magnets, making them critical parts for the electric vehicle industry. However, for European companies, price has taken a backseat: the real problem is the availability. After eight months of non-existent or minimal deliveries, even a half-year strategic stock begins to seem insufficient. Extreme security. The level of protection in the warehouse is such that even in the event of theft, the materials they could not be reintegrated in the industrial chain without certification, which reduces its value outside the legal circuit. In return, customers pay up to 2% annually of the stored value for logistics, which includes insurance. Meanwhile, European diplomacy is trying to buy time: the German Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, has traveled to Beijing to negotiate some type of relief, although he himself has acknowledged that there are no clear signs that China will grant general export licenses in the short term. Buried geopolitics. If you also want, the Frankfurt bunker is much more than a warehouse: it is a physical symbol of the extent to which geopolitics has penetrated the bowels of the European economy. Where civilians were once protected from bombings, today they protects the industry of strategic asphyxiation. Thus, the question that floats between drums and concrete walls is not how much rare earths will cost tomorrow, but when will they circulate again normally and whether Europe will arrive in time to build real autonomy before the next supply cut leaves it exposed again. Image | Berlin Wanderlust In Xataka | Germany didn’t know what to do with a dangerous Nazi bunker in the middle of Hamburg. The solution has radically changed the city In Xataka | Germany needs China’s rare earths at any price. And that price is giving you the future of your economy

We have found a very rare “hybrid” blood type that only three people out of half a million have

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At school they taught us a basic rule of the biology of our blood that would accompany us throughout our lives: o we are A, or B, AB or else O. He ABO system of the blood discovered by Landsteiner For more than a century, it has been the pillar of modern hematology and is essential for performing a transfusion or transplant. However, genetics has a habit of reminding us that biology does not follow the dogmas we have been taught in textbooks. Other blood types. The ABO system is undoubtedly the majority in our species and that’s what we’re completely used to handling. But the reality is that there are other groups that are really minorities, like the one they have discovered a group of researchers from Thailandwhich has confirmed what seemed like a statistical anomaly. In this way, after analyzing the blood of 544,000 people, they have found a “hybrid type” of blood that It is extremely rare. So rare, that in that massive sample only three people own it. And this is not only a challenge for the different health systems that must have greater control over blood transfusions, since giving blood that is not compatible to these patients can be a death sentence. A goal. The study, carried out by researchers linked to the National Blood Center of Thailand and recently reviewed, started from a brute force premise: mass analysis. By screening more than half a million donors, the goal was identify rare phenotypes that escape the standard typing tests used in hospitals for the majority group. And so much so that they have achieved it. What they found in this case were three subjects who did not fit the usual patterns. This was not simply a rare blood type (as AB negative might be in certain populations), but a genetic structure that defies the Mendelian genetics that are classic in the human blood group. And to see it in magnitude, of the 544,000 subjects, only three presented this variant, which means that it has a prevalence of 0.00055%. Hybrid blood. Once we know how rare it is, the question becomes clear: what is hybrid blood? In general, it is necessary to know that the blood group is determined by a series of antigens that are on the surface of the red blood cells that travel through the bloodstream. These antigens are placed there by specific enzymes. If a person has enzyme A, they will be blood group A. If they have enzyme B they will be group B and if they have both they will be AB. And this is where the deep science comes in: the ABO gene is incredibly diverse in our environment. What these three individuals present seems to be a variant of what in hematology known as cis-AB phenotypes or B(A) hybrids. Instead of inheriting an A allele from one parent and a B allele from the other, they possess a mutation that allows a single allele to code for both enzymes at once, or create a “mutant” enzyme capable of performing both functions. A confirmation. This is an idea that On paper it looked very good.especially after research that pointed to the possibility of a hybrid enzyme that had both functions. Now the Thai team has only confirmed that this phenomenon really exists in humans. The problem of transfusions. We might think this is just a curiosity for geneticists, but it has real implications. If one of these three people needed an urgent transfusion and was misclassified with a standard test, the consequences could be fatal, since they would develop a major immunological reaction at the time of being transfused, which would seriously put their life at risk. All this because the immune system is ready to attack everything that is foreign, that is, everything that does not resemble what is inside. Thus, if blood is transfused that has small modifications to the red blood cells, it can react by destroying them and creating a potentially fatal reaction. It is not an isolated event. Although this may seem like an oddity that has only now been discovered, the reality is that there are many blood types that fall outside the classic ABO. One of the most curious It is known as ‘golden blood’ where you are neither Rh positive nor negative, but null. This makes him a universal donor (hence his name), but the problem is that he can only receive transfusions from his own blood group, which is extremely rare to find. Although it is not the only one, since we have rarer groups such as Gwada-Negative which is accompanied by other important neurological symptoms. Images | Aman Chaturvedi In Xataka | Not all brain cells age at the same time: we have found a “hot spot” of aging

The world’s rare earth reserves, laid out in this graph showing the brutal dominance of a single country

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The rare earths They are neither earth nor are they rare. It is a set of 17 chemical elements that have become the lever that moves both geopolitics like practically any technology and energy sector today. As important as knowing how to produce it is knowing where the reserves are, and in both things there is a name that dominates the international scene: China. And in this graph we can see which countries have the upper hand. Or “the country”, rather. China, prominent name. Prepared by Visual Capitalist from the data of the United States Geological Survey -USGS-, the graph is very clear when it comes to visualizing the estimated rare earth reserves. China has more than twice as much as the next on the list, which in turn has three times as much as the third. The Asian giant would have reserves of 44 million metric tons, Brazil with 21 million and India with 6.9 million. Far on the list are countries like Australia (5.7 million), Russia (3.8 million), Vietnam (3.5 million), the United States (1.9 million) and Greenland (1.5 million) if we take into account those that exceed one million. The crazy thing is that the world total is estimated at about 92 million metric tons, so China has approximately 50% of the reserves. Importance. Rare earth elements are present in practically anything we can imagine. From the most subtle things such as smartphone elements or the magnets in the headphones that we use every day to the most complex things such as space telescopes, aerospace technology or guidance systems for military radars and advanced weaponry. They are also crucial to manufacturing the elements of energy change: batteries both of electric cars as accumulators for renewable energy and the internal systems themselves of both solar panels like wind turbines. And there’s something important here: you can have reservations, but if you don’t process them, those reservations are worthless. Rare earths as a weapon. The problem is that these rare earth elements do not appear isolated in nature, but rather attached to other minerals. It is necessary to separate them, something that is done through an extremely expensive and, above all, polluting refining process. Due to Western environmental policies, for years we relegate that task to a China with a more lax regulation (although it has been changing recently), and with the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump To the Asian country we have seen how China has taken advantage of his position. Same as with Soy. They have the technology and knowledge for processing rare earths, and they have been responding to the new tariffs, cutting off the supply of metals and elements that the west needs to create weapons or to make that technological paradigm shift through renewables. The West, for years, financed its own strategic and technological vulnerability. Even the western mines, such as Mountain Pass in the United Statessent his material to China to refine it there. Examples of affected productions? Suzuki had to stop production of the Swift due to a shortage of components, the European automobile industry has also shouted to the sky and Elon Musk does not have the money to manufacture his robots. making friends. As China has turned rare earths into its most powerful lever of power, the West has had to move and different countries have undertaken missions to search for new rare earth deposits. It is a strategy that is bearing fruit, finding promising deposits in Spain, Norway, Greenland either Japan. It is also being studied how to restart the rare earth producing arm in the West, although the difficulties are there both due to the technique and, above all, due to the restrictions on emissions. Searching under the stones. And that is a big problem that In Spain we are experiencing first-hand. There are several deposits found in our country, but due to this problematic and polluting extraction, mining projects have encountered opposition from neighborhood platforms and city councils. An example is Torrenueva, in an important site found in Campo de Montiel. And that is why there are several projects and research underway that are not favoring the refining of rare earths, but the recycling of these elements to, as far as possible, stop depending so much on a country that has a monopoly both for reserves and production capacity and for contracts with the most powerful mines on the other side of the world. For example, that of Serra Verde that sells exclusively to China until 2027. In Xataka | Sweden believes it has the largest reserve of rare earths in Europe: one more step towards our independence from China

The new mayor of New York is a rare bird in the US, but he has an even more unexpected facet: a shareholder of Real Oviedo

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Among the many congratulations that Zohran Mamdani has received over the last few days, after conquering the seat of mayor of New York, there is one that stands out as unexpected: that of Real Oviedo. Yesterday the club carbayón conveyed his congratulations via It may sound strange, but it is better understood when you know a key fact: Mamdani has been a shareholder of Real Oviedo for years. To understand it you have to go back to 2012. Who is Zohran Mamdani? That question might have made sense a few years ago, when Mamdani was one of a long list of members of the Albany Assembly. Today his name is one of the most popular in the United States, even outside the political sphere. The reason: on Tuesday he beat Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa in the race for New York City Council, becoming the elected successor of Eric L. Adams and crowning a dazzling rise. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why is it so popular? Taking into account that New York is the main city in the United States (and one of the most media-rich on the planet), becoming its mayor should be enough to gain global projection, but Mamdani stands out for something else: an unorthodox profile. So much so, in fact, that it is a rare bird in the long history of the municipality. To start with his age: he has just turned 34, making him the youngest politician to hold office in the last century. As if that weren’t enough, Mamdani is an immigrant (born in Kampala, Uganda), Muslim, made his debut in the world of rap under the name Mr. Cardamomo and defines himself as a “democratic socialist.” He is also a skilled communicator, handles himself with ease in networks and has not hesitated to run as one of the strongest voices in the opposition to Donald Trump, whom he sent a public message after proclaiming himself the winner of the municipal elections: “I know you’re watching. I only have three words for you: turn up the volume! New York will continue to be a city of immigrants, built by immigrants and driven by immigrants. And starting tonight led by an immigrant.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. And what does it have to do with Oviedo? To answer that question we have to go back to 2012, when Real Oviedo passed through low hours. In Spain the winds of recession were blowing and the club carbayón He was seen with battered accounts and confined to the Second Division Bfrom which it would still take time to come out. The club itself refers to that period, which began in 2001, as a “fight for survival”. With that backdrop, the Asturian team decided to desperately search for a capital increase to save it from the hole, an effort in which the city devoted itself and which had the support of well-known figures, such as the popular British journalist Sid Lowewho gave visibility to the campaign on social networks. The call from Lowe, a native of Archway (London), but a fan of Real Oviedo since his student years in the Asturian capital, came among others to a young man from Kampala, a football fan and with musical whims: Zohran Mamdani. At the time he was only 21 years old, but he decided to join the wave of support. On November 9, 2012, at 5:47 p.m., he responded to Sid Lowe’s request with a message posted on Twitter: “I just bought a share, am I possibly the first shareholder of the eral Oviedo based in Maine? #SOSRealOviedo.” His tweet passed without pain or glory. The message from one more fan. One more among hundreds. Things changed on Tuesday, when Mamdani became mayor of NY. Is it your only relationship with football? Mamdani is more than just a politician, former rapper and (now) elected mayor of the largest city in the United States. He is also a self-confessed soccer fan. He himself has said that he made his first steps during his student years and his Arsenal fandom. “My uncle is a fan. I had magnets of the Invincibles (the team that won the 2003-2004 First League without losing a game) on my fridge. I loved David Seaman, Sylvain Wiltord, all of them… I have gone to many Arsenal games, many with my uncle. It has been a very important part of my life,” explained recently to The New York Times. Beyond the stands or the fields, Mamdani has known how to combine his football hobby with his political side, which has led him to launch a campaign to demand that FIFA not marginalize New Yorkers in the World that will host North America in 2026 and that includes the MetLife Stadium between its stages. Their proposal is that the organizers reserve part of the tickets for residents and also offer them a discount. The objective: that enjoying the championship is not an unattainable luxury for New York families. Images | Real Oviedo and Wikipedia In Xataka | In 2017 Liverpool signed a star footballer. Without knowing it, he had found the solution to racism in sports

one will give in on tariffs, the other on rare earths

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Donald Trump and Xi Jinping They have met in BusanSouth Korea, in their first face-to-face meeting in six years. The goal: to see if there was any way to deal with all the chaos of their trade war, one that has shaken global markets and threatened to destabilize the world economy. After shaking hands at Gimhae air base, Trump stated that it was going to be a successful meeting, although he also warned that Xi is “a difficult negotiator.” What has been agreed. After approximately ninety minutes of talks, Trump assured that there would be significant tariff reductions. On the one hand, the president claims that tariffs related to fentanyl will drop from 20% to 10%which would place the total tariff burden on Chinese products at around 47%, compared to the previous 57%. Just like the media points outChina, for its part, has agreed to postpone for a year new restrictions on the export of rare earths processed, critical minerals for sectors such as defense, technology and renewable energies. In addition, Beijing will resume the massive purchase of American soybeans, a relief for North American farmers, tremendously affected by the absence of China in their market this year. Why is it important. This meeting comes after months of commercial escalation which has made investors and allies alike nervous. Logically, the fact that the two largest economies on the planet confront each other has consequences at a global level. Chinese restrictions on rare earths and lithium batteries threatened to cripple essential supply chains, while US tariffs on technology have curbed China’s ambitions in artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the agreement reached in Kuala Lumpur prior consultations sets the stage for a truce that, if fulfilled, could inject stability into a highly volatile global economy. We have to wait for results. Despite the optimistic tone, there is room for caution. Trump and Xi have already signed a “phase one” agreement in 2020 that forced China to buy more American agricultural products, something that Beijing barely complied with, according to words from WSJ. This time there are more elements at stake: the suspension of US investigations into Chinese maritime and logistics industries, review of technological export controls, advances in the case of TikTokrare earths, Taiwan and more. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, both sides “have reached consensus while respecting principles of equality and mutual benefit.” It remains to be seen if that consensus ends up materializing. What was not touched. Trump claimed that Taiwan was not discussed at the meeting, allaying fears in Taipei about possible American concessions in exchange for trade advantages. Just like they explain From WSJ, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had already publicly ruled out this possibility days before. Regarding Ukraine, Trump said they discussed the issue “extensively” and that both countries will work together to find a solution, although he did not give details. Curiously, according to point The Guardian, minutes before the meeting, Trump ordered the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing, although the president later suggested it was not related to China. And now what. Xi has declared that both sides should “finish follow-up work as soon as possible” to implement the consensus reached. trump confirmed that he will visit China in April and that Xi will travel to the United States later. It remains to be seen if what Trump has loudly announced ends up materializing or if, on the contrary, it remains another meeting of unfulfilled promises. Cover image | Guardian In Xataka | China wants to achieve technological independence in the worst possible place for the US: its army

After China’s stick, the US already has a new partner to obtain rare earths

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President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have signed a critical minerals deal with the potential to create projects worth up to $8.5 billion, according to says the NYT. The pact responds directly to the recent restrictions that China has imposed on its exports of rare eartha movement that Trump rated as “sinister and hostile.” Why it is important. Critical minerals and rare earths are essential materials for manufacturing everything from semiconductors to engines, brakes and military fighters. China currently dominates global supply of these resources, which makes any restriction on their part a direct threat to Western production chains. And therefore, diversifying the sources of these types of elements has become a strategic priority for both the Trump administration and the previous Biden administration. Agreement with Australia. According to the summary provided by the White House, the agreement contemplate that the United States and Australia jointly invest $3 billion in critical minerals projects over the next six months. For its part, Australia is committed to investing billions in American defense companies. The US Department of Defense will also participate in the construction of a new refinery in Australia capable of extracting 100 tons of gallium metal per year. “In about a year, we will have so many critical minerals and rare earths that we won’t know what to do with them,” claimed Trump optimistically during the meeting with Albanese. The Australian Prime Minister, for his part, stressed that this agreement on critical minerals takes the economic and security relationship between both countries “to the next level.” Plan of action. Albanese’s office has made clear that the agreement functions as an “action plan” that “does not constitute or create legally binding obligations.” This contrasts with the public statements of both leaders, who seemed very enthusiastic on camera about the agreement, according to point the middle. The Australian ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, already had advanced in August that Australia was “ready and able to help” diversify US supply chains, recalling that manufacturing a single Virginia-class submarine requires approximately 4.5 short tons of critical minerals and rare earth elements. This agreement also confirms Trump’s support for the AUKUS pactthe trilateral defense alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia announced in 2021 under the Biden administration. Trump, who had undergone a thorough review of AUKUS since July, said plans to deliver US-made submarines to Canberra were “moving forward very quickly.” However, he acknowledged that the project had progressed “too slowly” so far. US Navy Secretary John Phelan declared that the goal is to “improve the original AUKUS framework for all three parties and clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the previous agreement.” China’s door is not closed yet. With this move, the United States is closer to having access to these critical minerals from different parts of the world, reducing its dependence on China. In recent months, the US government has committed 75 million dollars to invest in Ukraine’s mineral reserves and has backed railway projects in Angola that will facilitate access to minerals in central Africa. Despite tensions with Beijing, Trump stated on Monday that he believes it is possible to reach a trade deal with China during his upcoming trip to Asia this month, where he is expected to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Cover image | Paul-Alain Hunt and Brandon Mowinkel In Xataka | China was the great polluter of the planet: now it is emerging as the first “electrostate” in history

China wants to imprison the world with its restrictions on rare earths. His greatest prey has escaped him

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It’s been months since China presses the whole world with one of his great aces up his sleeve: rare earths. Last week he used them again to unbalance the balance of technological trade worldwide and imposed new restrictions to its export, but its attack has a gigantic hole. One called Taiwan. rare earths to me. Taiwan’s economy minister has revealed that the country does not expect there to be a big impact from these new restrictions from China. The reason is simple: such minerals are different from the metals needed in the semiconductor sector that Taiwan’s manufacturers and production plants dominate. Taiwan does not need China. In fact, both the products necessary domestically for the production of these chips and the rare earths used in their manufacturing processes come from Europe, the United States and Japan. This makes the country safe from the pressure that China wants to exert with its dominance of the rare earth segment. China tries to force the hand. China expanded significantly export controls on rare earths last Thursday. It added five new items to its list of minerals with restricted exports, but also imposed new scrutiny mechanisms for chip users. The change is not minor: any product manufactured outside the country that contains just 0.1% of materials of Chinese origin will need a license to be exported. TSMC safe. Taiwan is the largest chip factory in the world and for years it has TSMC as a major player in the sector. The company leads this segment and has become the great ally of the Western world when it comes to producing chips for the AI ​​industry. The Chinese restrictions do not appear to pose future dangers for TSMC and other manufacturers in the country, according to those statements. But. Even so, the economy minister added that these additional controls could affect global supply chains for various products. To clarify better: the direct impact may not be noticeable, but yes it could be the indirect onebecause for example ASML’s EUV scanners use rare earth magnets that could end up suffering delays due to these restrictions. And be careful with the “ripe chips”. For example, chips for electric vehicles and drones. China is precisely determined to dominate the mature circuit market: given that can’t compete At the moment with the most advanced manufacturing technology, what it wants is to be the main protagonist of less advanced but equally important chips in industries such as the automotive industry. Restrictions as a lever to negotiate. China’s measures in this regard They are just part of that commercial and technological war that it maintains with the West and, especially, with the United States. The reaction of the US government was immediate, and Donald Trump announced 100% additional tariffs on Chinese imports. Both superpowers try to use their assets to put pressure on their rival while waiting for a imminent negotiation: Trump and Xi Jinping are expected to meet in South Korea in late October. Image |Wikimedia | leannk

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