US building more factories but no raw material

Video: US building more factories but no raw material, China owns the supply chain and China cuts off graphite sales to US 美國建更多工廠但沒有原料，中國擁有供應鏈，中國切斷對美國的石墨銷售

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/04/biden-factory-spending-manufacturing-chips
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-15/us-manufacturing-boom-is-about-more-than-evs-chips
https://aheadoftheherd.com/us-transportation-electrification-and-battery-belt-boom-cant-continue-without-graphite-richard-mills/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-22/chinese-exports-of-battery-material-graphite-plunge-on-controls

The United States has seen an epic factory boom, from early 2021 through 2022, which tripled construction spending for manufacturing facilities. Most of these factories are devoted to the electrification of our transportation networks, and to semiconductors. Further, the objective is to build these technologies domestically and thereby wrest control of these supply and production chains from China.

But all that manufacturing will require huge production of batteries, which in turn require graphite. China has monopolies on most of the refined and synthetic graphite that is used for such batteries, and in late 2023 announced strict export curbs on the metal. Graphite exports immediately collapsed over 90%, leaving North America and Europe scrambling for new sources.

The earliest domestic (US) production of new graphite will be in 2027, and in a best-case scenario will be about a fourth of anticipated US demand.

These realities leave China in a most advantageous position: they can either continue the graphite bans and produce all the batteries for the global market themselves, or use their monopolistic position in graphite to negotiate sharp reductions in tariff rates for other Chinese exports.

從 2021 年初到 2022 年，美國工廠出現了史詩般的繁榮，製造設施的建設支出增加了兩倍。 這些工廠大多致力於交通網路的電氣化和半導體。 此外，目標是在國內開發這些技術，從而從中國手中奪取對這些供應和生產鏈的控制。

但所有這些製造都需要大量生產電池，而電池又需要石墨。 中國對用於此類電池的大部分精煉和合成石墨擁有壟斷地位，並於 2023 年底宣布嚴格限制該金屬的出口。 石墨出口立即銳減 90% 以上，導致北美和歐洲爭先恐後地尋找新來源。

美國國內最早將在 2027 年生產新型石墨，在最好的情況下，產量將達到美國預期需求的四分之一左右。

這些現實使中國處於最有利的地位：他們可以繼續實施石墨禁令並自己為全球市場生產所有電池，或者利用其在石墨領域的壟斷地位通過談判大幅降低中國其他出口產品的關稅稅率。