Firstly, I don't know what they expect to achieve with these threats. I think the US has shown so far that it's not going to easily bend to such threats, this was a bad move on their part. Maybe they knew this, hence using the media to broadcast this message. Still, this very much sounds like escalation talk rather than de-escalation.
Secondly, these "rare earths" aren't actually rare, most mines were simply shut down because they weren't competitive with China. The Chinese deliberately drove the price of various materials into the ground in order to gain a monopoly (a security risk I think the West should have seen coming). A local example of this was Sheffield steel.
Thirdly, if the cost of such materials was to rise significantly, hopefully it would have the affect of removing planned obsolescence being built into products. A mobile for twice the price might make people hold onto their mobile devices a little longer before upgrading, for example. Hopefully we can also get modular devices popular again with planned upgrade paths, rather than the glued-together mess we currently deliver.
Secondly, these "rare earths" aren't actually rare, most mines were simply shut down because they weren't competitive with China. The Chinese deliberately drove the price of various materials into the ground in order to gain a monopoly (a security risk I think the West should have seen coming). A local example of this was Sheffield steel.
Thirdly, if the cost of such materials was to rise significantly, hopefully it would have the affect of removing planned obsolescence being built into products. A mobile for twice the price might make people hold onto their mobile devices a little longer before upgrading, for example. Hopefully we can also get modular devices popular again with planned upgrade paths, rather than the glued-together mess we currently deliver.