Global labor governance is fracturing, leaving manufacturers caught between competing legal systems that, in effect, force them to choose between maintaining access to the Chinese input networks or Western markets.

Indium is the one critical mineral that remains restricted in the wake of the November 2025 US-China trade deal, throttling global supply of a key input in data centers. This article explores indium’s geopolitical importance and Washington’s slow but steady progress toward supply diversification.

It’s true that export controls have curbed the development of China’s domestic AI stack. But they have conversely also made it a rational inevitability, which is already evident in China’s ‘good enough’ AI stack.

This week we cover a new trade framework between China and the United States, a key meeting at the sidelines of APEC between Canada’s prime minister and Xi Jinping, a highly anticipated rate decision from the Bank of Japan, and early indications that Trump’s new round of Russia sanctions are having their intended effect.

The Busan framework illustrates a new phase in US–China relations: one defined not by resolution or reconciliation, but by management of rivalry.

A deal between the US DoD and MP Materials to restart rare earth production at Mountain Pass in California is a page out of China’s industrial policy rulebook. But it will be years before US domestic rare earth production can catch up.

Beijing has been preparing the Chinese economy for another round of trade-related US-China tensions, but it might not be enough.

Examining the scope of President Trump’s new China tariffs, their likely consequences, and how they match up to previous rounds of the US-China trade war.

Donald Trump’s early cabinet picks are a who’s who of China hawks and critics, indicating mounting US-China tensions over the next four years.

An in-depth examination of the historical intrigues and geopolitical dynamics surrounding Guinea’s Simandou iron mine – one of the world’s last untapped major reserves of high-grade iron ore, and the central pillar of Beijing’s push to diversify iron supply lines away from the West.

The realities of global trade and domestic deindustrialization cannot be glossed over with non-binding initiatives like the IPEF; either the United States adapts and brings allies on board, or it falls behind.

The CHIPS Act buys time for the US semiconductor industry. But if Washington and other Western allies desire a lasting victory, they will have to beat Beijing at its own game.

China's restrictions on gallium and germanium exports threaten to impact the wider global semiconductor industry.

The South Korean chip industry is caught in the middle of an intensifying US-China trade war.

US-China cooperation on fentanyl precursor chemicals has proven effective in the past; however, it has become a geopolitical casualty as relations sour between Washington and Beijing.

Tariffs are questionable economic policy, but their role in inflation is minimal.

Recent US-China trade data reminds that breaking up is hard to do.

Decoupling is the natural result of China’s worsening business climate for foreign companies.

The Biden administration’s China policy is crystalizing, and the earliest indications aren’t terribly encouraging for Beijing.

2021 is shaping up to be a make-or-break year for the future of US-China relations.