a man driving a front loader shifts soil containing rare
A man driving a front loader shifts soil containing rare earth minerals to be loaded at a port in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu province. CN-STR/Getty Images

China wants a clean, high-profile summit with Washington on September 24. But the numbers suggest Beijing's own sanctions machinery, not a deliberate squeeze on the US, is disrupting the rare earth trade.

Foreign observers might assume this is Beijing wielding rare earths as leverage again, the way it has before. Reuters reported on September 4 that Chinese suppliers are quietly declining to ship materials to American customers. According to the report, which cited three unnamed sources, the reason has little to do with a top-down export ban.

The Real Trigger: A Law Beijing Aimed at Itself

On August 5, China's Ministry of Commerce issued Order No. 2, sanctioning six US entities. One of them was the Responsible Business Alliance, or RBA — not a government body, but an industry-run group that certifies supply chains for labor and environmental compliance. Many Chinese factories use RBA certification to prove to Western buyers they meet ethical sourcing standards. Beijing accused the group of helping enforce US sanctions tied to Xinjiang.

Here's the part that trips up outside readers: this isn't a case of Chinese suppliers refusing to sell. It's China's own Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law creating fear. Under that law, any company seen cooperating with a blacklisted entity's network can face penalties at home. So suppliers aren't holding back deliveries by choice — they're avoiding a legal trap Beijing built for someone else and then stepped into itself.

July's Numbers Complicate the Picture

A separate Reuters report from August 20 found China exported 29 tons of yttrium oxide to the US in July. That was the second-highest monthly total since export controls began. This figure predates the supplier hesitancy described in the September report, so the two shouldn't be read as one continuous trend. They describe different moments, and the gap between them is itself worth watching.

Don't Confuse This With Japan's Rare Earth Squeeze

Separately, Chinese customs data cited by Reuters show terbium exports to Japan fell to zero tons between January and August this year, down from 20 tons in the same period last year. Gallium exports to Japan dropped 65%, and yttrium exports to Japan dropped 98% over the same stretch. These figures describe trade with Japan only. They say nothing about supply to the US, and shouldn't be folded into the RBA story as if they were the same phenomenon.

Beijing Says Supply Chains Are Stable; Washington Stays Silent

Responding to the Reuters report, China's foreign ministry said it remained committed to keeping global supply chains stable, without directly addressing the shipment disruptions described by sources. The US Treasury Department, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the State Department, and China's commerce ministry all did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Trump has confirmed the September 24 meeting with Xi will go ahead. Whether Beijing eases the RBA sanctions before then, or lets its own law keep interrupting a trade flow it wants Washington to see mended, is still an open question. The next concrete signal will be China's August export data, which should show whether the July yttrium spike to the US was an outlier or the start of a rebound.

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