China threatens access to supplies vital to the most important U.S. industries

Chinese officials unleashed new plans to restrict access to minerals critical for America's most economically important industries.

Why it matters: The expanded export controls are a fresh threat to an already fragile U.S.-China trade truce.

Friction point: The measures are widely seen as a way to gain leverage ahead of an expected meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China later this month. • But it also points to the new tension likely to define U.S.-China relations in the years ahead: access to inputs as the world's economic superpowers battle for dominance in key industries, especially AI. • U.S. export controls strengthened under Trump limit China's access to high-tech chips.

Driving the news: Beijing tightened its grip on rare earths on Thursday, with in