From the New York Times, this is The Daily.

I'm Natalie Ketrowaf.

In the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, the biggest sticking point is a handful of metals that are extremely rare, essential to the U.S., and almost entirely under the control of China.

The problem is, China has now cut off America's access to those metals, threatening U.S. industry and its military.

Today, my colleague Keith Bradshaw explains how the U.S. became so dependent on China for these medals in the first

place and just how hard it'll be to live without them.

It's Tuesday, June 10.

Keith, it is lovely to see you again.

It's great to be back. Thank you.

So it's Monday evening.

Delegations for the U.S. and China met in London today to try to hash out a deal to de-escalate this trade war.

There's going to be another set of meetings on Tuesday.

And at the heart of these negotiations,

we know, are these rare earth metals. China essentially banned shipments of them to the U.S.

in early April, and that's caused a lot of problems. You, Keith, have been covering this industry

from inside of China for many, many years, which, I mean, respect.

But if you would ask me a year ago whether we'd be doing an entire daily episode on this,

I might not have believed you. So tell me about this rare earth's business.

Well, first, just as an overview, the rare earth's industry has it all.

It's got murderous gangsters, acid pits, dirt bikes, American defense contractors, electric

cars, clean energy, possibly mass layoffs in the U.S. economy.

You name it.

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