Fwd: What the Trump-Xi deal means for climate

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Oct 30, 2025, 12:19:53 PM (9 days ago) Oct 30

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US President Donald Trump has secured the resumption of rare-earth flows from China needed to make everything from wind turbines, to solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.

This newsletter breaks down what that means for the energy transition and the global effort to adopt cleaner technologies. The decision was made public after Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to a trade truce in Seoul earlier today.

Elsewhere, a clearer picture is emerging of the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. At least 33 people have died, and the damage done to property is likely to cost almost $8 billion to cover. On top of destroyed homes, blocked roads and a knocked-out grid, authorities in Jamaica are warning people to beware of crocodiles displaced by the storm. Forecasters say Bermuda is next.

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China’s rare truce

China has paused plans to dramatically expand restrictions on its rare-earths exports, offering relief to global buyers after a tumultuous year.

Export controls announced on Oct. 9 will be suspended for one year, China’s Ministry of Commerce said today, after Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to a trade truce at a meeting in Seoul.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images AsiaPac

The agreement in South Korea is the latest twist in a momentous year for the rare earths essential to make components used in wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries. China used its dominance over the niche but vital materials to force Trump to the negotiating table.

The stand-off spurred a major push by western economies to reduce reliance on the Asian nation. That includes a US agreement with Australia last week that will boost America’s access to rare earths and other critical minerals. Australia has an $8.5 billion pipeline “ready to go,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. The agreement would include Australian processing of rare earths and other critical minerals, leaders said.

But getting there might not be that easy because China controls the technologies needed to refine rare earths into the pure materials that then can be used in the clean energy sector — from the magnets key to make offshore wind turbines more efficient and cheaper to maintain, to the silicon that allows cells in solar panels to absorb more sunlight.

“China is obviously protecting its own share in the market by limiting the technologies needed to process them,” said Allan Ray Restauro, a metals analyst at BloombergNEF in Singapore. China’s move to tighten export controls “sped things up,’’ but last week’s announcement “was already something that the US and probably Australia had been planning.”

Companies in the clean energy space have tried to diversify away from China too, said Oliver Metcalfe, BloombergNEF’s head of wind research. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and GE Renewable Energy have signed agreements with Australia’s Arafura Rare Earths in recent years.

“We’ve seen some wind power companies try to reduce their exposure to Chinese rare earths, but these types of projects take time to come to fruition,” Metcalfe said. China’s announcement “certainly cuts the near-term risk for the sector for companies that depend more on rare earths.”

Tomorrow, the Group of Seven nations are set to announce plans for an alliance on critical-minerals supply aimed at challenging China’s dominance. That could include offtake and stockpiling arrangements to floor prices, effectively creating an alternative market outside China.

Trade flows of all rare earths products from China to the US were down 12% for the first three quarters of the year and they would have been much lower if Chinese controls had been put in place, Restauro said.

While it’s hard to predict what happens next, a look at what happened to Chinese commodity exports impacted by tariffs after agreements were reached offers some clues.

“When there was a pause in the application of tariffs, we would see an increase in exports,” Restauro said. “A lot of manufacturers or end-users of the product might want to get the material now if restrictions are applied — but that remains to be seen.”

Subscribe to Bloomberg News for more breaking news on US and China relations, and to Green Daily for quick takes on what that means for climate.

A chokehold on supply

92%

The share of refined rare-earth global supply coming from China in 2023, according to BloombergNEF

Collateral damage

“I don’t think offshore wind was the main target, but it has been caught up in the trade war”

Oliver Metcalfe

BloombergNEF’s head of wind research

An $8 billion storm — and counting

By Josh Saul, Lauren Rosenthal, Mary Hui and Zahra Hirji

Hurricane Melissa moved past Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba with at least 33 deaths and almost $8 billion of damage in its wake.

Across the Caribbean, the storm’s powerful winds have torn apart homes and buildings, blocked roads, trapped people on roofs and knocked out electricity. Airports on Jamaica were shut down, leaving about 25,000 tourists stranded. Authorities warned people to beware of crocodiles displaced by the storm.

People stay inside a shelter flooded by rain in Port-au-Prince, Haiti Photographer: Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo

The economic losses in Jamaica will hinge on the severity of flooding. But current estimates fall around $7.7 billion, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research. That’s about 35% of the island’s gross domestic product.

“It was widespread destruction,” Watson said, exceeding the $6 billion toll that Hurricane Gilbert inflicted on the island in 1988. “This was a very slow, very wet storm,” he said, adding that a faster-moving storm would have caused much less damage.

Lacovia Tombstone, Jamaica, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa Photographer: Matias Delacroix/AP Photo

Among the infrastructures that have suffered widespread damage are Jamaica’s power grid, and not for a lack of awareness. After Hurricane Beryl devastated the grid last year, officials at Jamaica’s sole utility vowed to fortify it. But the company’s initiatives were only in the planning and early implementation stages when Hurricane Melissa hit, according to research group BloombergNEF.

It could take days, maybe weeks, to conduct a comprehensive damage survey from the strongest known storm to hit Jamaica. According to early reports, there were blackouts over almost 80% of the country.

“The reports that are coming in are catastrophic,” Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s Minister of Transport, Telecommunications and Energy, told Sky News Australia in a televised interview on Tuesday. “Not very much survives a Category 5 hurricane in terms of infrastructure.”

Read the full story on what we know about Melissa’s impact and the in-depth analysis on the implications for Jamaica’s grid on Bloomberg.com.

One question with...

When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica as a Category Five storm on Tuesday, it not only hit the coast with a storm surge of up to 13 feet and dropped around 24 inches of rain on the nation’s mountainous interior. The twin dangers of coastal and inland flooding pose new challenges to efforts to make Caribbean countries resilient to storms that are moving more slowly as the world warms.

Jorge González-Cruz, a professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is involved in a regional initiative to help Caribbean nations adapt to climate change. Our reporter Todd Woody asked González-Cruz if new strategies are needed. He said countries need to embrace a “ridge-to-reef” approach to address inland flooding as well. Here’s his response:

“The challenge becomes when we have these massive storm systems like we have now. Flooding in the mountains will bring a lot of sediment downstream and potentially cause more coastal flooding. Water from the mountains will need to be managed much better than we do today because in the Caribbean, communities have developed along river banks so this river flooding creates a tremendous amount of damage to life and property.

“We need to think of it as a unified system and develop systems to channel that water. We can engineer solutions but there are communities that simply can’t be protected from potential flooding events and we have to look at relocation.”

This week on Zero

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

Just three companies control the lion’s share of the $120 billion global market for industrial gases: Linde, Air Liquide & Air Products. And because the production of these gases is so energy-intensive, each company consumes as much electricity as some small to medium-sized European countries. This week on Zero, Sanjiv Lamba, CEO of Linde, tells Akshat Rathi how he sees electricity demand changing, what Linde is doing to transition to clean sources, and whether low-carbon hydrogen can ever become big business.

Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

More from Green

The wealthiest 1% of the global population accounts for 15% of all emissions attributed to consumers, but if their carbon footprint is measured by the assets they own, their share jumps up to about 40%, the study, conducted by researchers at the World Inequality Lab, found.

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com

For a fourth straight year, banks are making more money providing loans and underwriting bond sales for green-related projects than they’re earning from fossil fuel companies.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government issued a €300 million (¥53 billion) bond Tuesday to boost flood defenses and other climate-related countermeasures.