Dear Readers, It’s Thinking Time! This week we cover Trump’s new deal with China which effectively gives the US one to two years to boost domestic production and reroute supply chains in order to make the US self-reliant on rare earths, in a world where China is the de facto sole-source of refined rare earths. Challenge accepted? TBL Thinks is our way to summarize the most important paywalled, longer reads relevant to global macroeconomics, helping you cut through the noise. With that in mind, please enjoy.
Is the fiat retirement system sinking? With markets uncertain, layoffs on the rise, and monetary policy shifting, it might be time to rethink how you protect your long-term savings. On October 28 at 12 PM CT, Mark Moss and Unchained’s Jeff Vandrew will cover:
Tuesday, Oct 28 at 12:00 PM CT — online, free to attend. Secretary Bessent Calls China Unreliable PartnersAccording to a trade pact agreed to earlier this week between President Trump and Xi Jinping, “China will effectively suspend implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and will issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths for the benefit of U.S. end users and their suppliers around the world,” meaning the effective removal of controls China imposed in April 2025 and October 2022.” The US will in turn pause some of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs while also extending the expiration of certain tariff exclusions for a year. It will also halt plans for the 100% tariff on Chinese goods that was planned for November. While it seems for the moment the two countries have come to a very tenuous truce, any bump in the road could lead to a revamp of trade war with tariffs threats and rare earth retaliation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pulled zero punches and said that despite deals, the US and its allies need to be wary of China. In an interview with Fox news, Bessent said that “the Chinese have cornered the market, and unfortunately, at times, they proved to be unreliable partners.” He also added that China’s been planning its rare earth restrictions for 25-30 years but the U.S. is finally awake and rallying its allies (specifically mentioning western democracies, Asian democracies and India) to “get out from under the sword that the Chinese have over us and over the whole world” over the next one to two years. We have become used to President Trump using Bessent as the bad cop, ironically, in a good-cop-bad-cop routine. And yes, to our surprise, the President played good cop in his meeting with Xi, while Bessent struck with fighting words.  Subscribe to The Bitcoin Layer to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of The Bitcoin Layer to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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Tuesday, November 4, 2025
TBL Thinks: Operation Warp Speed 2.0
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