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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China’s dominance of rare earths calls for a more assertive American industrial policy.
Oct. 15, 2025, 12:17 p.m. ET
The Trump administration is seeking to counter new economic measures from China by exerting more control over American companies in key strategic sectors, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday.
The approach marks a new era of industrial policy in the United States, a contrast to how policymakers have traditionally valued free markets and open investment. But as China’s dominance over the production of rare earth minerals and battery technology grows, President Trump wants to take a page out of Beijing’s economic strategy. By taking more stakes in American companies that specialize in areas deemed critical to national security, the Trump administration aims to exert more control over what they produce. The goal is for the U.S. to become less reliant on China for sensitive technology that it has been using as leverage in trade negotiations.
“When you are facing a nonmarket economy like China, then you have to exercise industrial policies,” Mr. Bessent said at a forum on investing in America sponsored by CNBC.
Tensions between the world’s two largest economies have rapidly escalated after the Chinese government last week proposed a new licensing system to cover the global trade in products that contain trace amounts of Chinese rare-earth minerals, or minerals mined or processed using Chinese technology.
The rules, which would go into effect later this year, shocked foreign governments and businesses, who would theoretically need to seek licenses from Beijing to trade in products ranging from cars to computer chips, even outside of Chinese borders. The system would also deny shipments to any U.S. and European defense or weapons manufacturers, who are still highly dependent on Chinese minerals.
On Friday, Mr. Trump responded by threatening to put an additional 100 percent tariff on products from China on Nov. 1 and cancel an upcoming meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. After the announcements caused the stock market to plummet, Mr. Trump quickly qualified his statements. He said he might meet Mr. Xi anyway and wrote on social media on Sunday, “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!”
