re your ” I was afraid it would come to this.” “The Chinese have us over a barrel here.”
Comment: It’s not so bad. Its good. More evidence globalization (US Decline) is in reverse and the USA economy will do better eventually. To me it means we will buy rare earths from ourselves, from domestic workers suppliers and mines.
The same thing happened to Cannabis. (and other things) We used to buy it from Mexico and export dollars. Now we have domestic Pot. Money stays home. Only draw back is we consume our supplies instead of saving ours in the ground and consuming foreign produced stuff.
Personally we shouldn’t be happy exporting food fuel and metals, important things that put extra demand and higher price. Better to export coffee mugs, toys, ratchet sets, cars, consumer electronics etc etc.
Why is it China buys Boeings food and good stuff, and we buy useless crap that we can make ourselves. 9/11/01 was the tipping point, and the 2008 crash CONFIRNED a reversal.