America’s factory boom now a bust as China cuts off graphite sales, likely to push tariff repeals

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. Resources and links: Axios, Factory construction spending booms under Biden Bloomberg, US Manufacturing Boom Is About More Than EVs, Chips US transportation and electrification, battery belt boom cannot continue without graphite Graphite One and Lucid Enter into Non-Binding Supply Agreement Bloomberg, Chinese Exports of Battery Material Graphite Plunge on Controls Closing scene, Grasslands of Inner Mongolia, near Hulunbeir