USA has lost the trade war and that has multiple consequences- including the crippling of US military. When Trump tried to bully China with tariffs China was prepared- and responded by cutting the supply of rare earths to the US. Without rare earths the US military industrial combine is fucked- it cannot make most of the high tech manufactured goods required of a modern economy and a modern war. China has still not resumed exports of rare earths for military purposes- the US military is now crippled because it cannot build the equipment that would be required in any war of any scale. Neoliberal financialisation blinded the US/West. Economic and military power is based upon engineering and the ability to design and build the strongest 'guns'. China has won the trade war and this now extends to military capability. It will be a decade at least before the US can gain independent supply of refined rare earths- it it ever happens, which it may not as to rebuild across the US/Wests industrial base would be hugely complex and expensive and as Chinas lead across multiple technologies increases the west/US is increasingly left behind.

Some idiots will call me CCP bot for stating the above facts but in fact those who deny the reality of Chinas mercantile and military development are the real traitors to the west as they leave the west incapable of responding logically and positively to the real threat that exists.

It is tragic how little attention this topic gets here on Stacker News- as the US exceptionalists refuse to acknowledge the problem faced and hide from it like cowardly idiots. 500 years of global hegemony has left many incredulous that the west global domination might not last forever. That it may already face a very serious contest. That blindness and arrogance makes the west all the more vulnerable.