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Türkiye will not sell rare earth elements to the USA
- engcoach 1y ago[flagged]
- onetokeoverthe 1y ago[dead]
- phailhaus 1y agoNATO is a defensive alliance, not a trade organization.
- stackedinserter 1y agoApparently, rare metals are becoming critical for defence industry.
- engcoach 1y agoCorrect, and this is the latest in a serious of decisions made by Türkiye which imperil NATO's collective defense. Rare earths are vital for military equipment. This action is coming from a country that NATO has trusted with its best technology and they continue to flirt with both Russia and China, NATO's primary threats. Do you see how my comment is about the impact on NATO's ability to wage war? What if Türkiye begins sharing military secrets with China? They are working with China on the mine referenced in the article. They are not trustworthy.
- mrs6969 1y agoI can only laugh at this statement. There are way many events where usa did act like an not trustworthy. Maybe you should start asking questions like “why my allies seeking external alliances, am I doing something wrong”
- notepad0x90 1y agowhat's left of it after it's dismantlement you mean? it isn't much of an alliance now. and if it is going to be used to twist arms in trade disagreements, it is already dead.
- bpodgursky 1y agoTürkiye is a highly effective arms manufacturer and is pretty aligned with NATO most of the time. They've been one of the more surprisingly strong supporters of Ukraine. They shot down a Russian jet a few years ago just to emphasize FAFO. Yes they have their specific regional interests they will emphasize even when they offend NATO sensibilities, like giving Armenia the finger in their war with Azerbaijan, but that is not a major cost compared to what they give the US and EU strategically.
- lukan 1y ago"when they offend NATO sensibilities, like giving Armenia the finger in their war" Or when they support islamists in Syria against the kurds and annect illegally parts of it. Who cares about those things nowdays anyway. But if we want NATO to not just be a military force, but something something freedom and human rights, maybe we should care more about it.
- bpodgursky 1y agoYes, this is what I mean. Should the US sacrifice the security of Europe to make a (pointless) statement about Syrian internal politics? Frankly, it's unreasonable for Turkey to not have an opinion about the PKK. If there was a comparable terror group in Mexico, the US would absolutely be doing airstrikes! Punishing Turkey over this will accomplish nothing and sabotage the relationship. The US already had a reasonable plan in Syria, supporting the non-PKK elements while maneuvering towards a political reunification.
- Maken 1y agoWho has ever wanted that?
- braincat31415 1y agoFAFO? Yet another moronic acronym of the day. Jeez...
- bpodgursky 1y ago
- bobxmax 1y ago[dead]
- jasonlotito 1y agoYou want to kick them out of NATO because the USA and Turkey currently do not have a trade agreement on rare earth elements? Because that's what you are claiming.
- shigawire 1y agoSeems like this is talking about not allowing the US to own the deposits or processing - as opposed to not selling the output to the US? Anyone know if that is correct?
- stackedinserter 1y agoGood news is that with allies like this we don't need enemies!
- furkansahin 1y agoMaybe you guys should redefine who is your allies and enemies. Since the last one year or so even your allies feel like they are your enemies anyway. Tell me, who do you not have a beef with atm?
- burkaman 1y agoWe seem to be very good friends with Saudi Arabia and Qatar now.
- furkansahin 1y ago“tell me who your friends are so that I can tell who you are” is a Turkish saying, dear “burka man”
- stackedinserter 1y agoAllies are those who fight together. The ones who are like "man, fight alone and we'll mock you for military spending" - are not. The ones who are like "yo we kinda support you in a fight, but we'll also pump money into your enemy" - are not either. But I sorta agree to your point, current administration screw up their allies really hard, although I see it more like very bitter pill that hurts before healing. BTW I'm not 'merican, I'm from Canada.
- furkansahin 1y agoI don’t see the USA fighting together with Turkey in any area tbh. Turkey handled the Syria situation single handedly while getting blocked on F35 deals. From this side of the ocean, it looks like the bad brother has been the USA, not the other way around. Saying that, I hate our administration, too…
- tokai 1y agoBoth this article and its source are misrepresenting the actual quote. Its seems to be about rumors that rare earth minerals are being sold now. >Responding to the allegations that 'rare earth elements are sold to the USA', Bayraktar said that there is absolutely no such thing. Bayraktar said, "The agreement we made and signed in America was also a nuclear-related agreement. If we had done it about rare earth elements, be sure, they would have declared it too, we would have declared it," he said.
- mrtksn 1y agoYep, this is about local politics. It is customary in Turkish politics to discover vast natural resources from time to time and promise that good times are ahead if you vote for Erdogan one more time(this field was discovered months before the 2023 elections). They are often exaggerated, although resources exist. There's a meme from the previous election cycle about a pro-Erdogan TV personality celebrating the natural gas reserves discovered before elections instructing citizens to open the windows and run the boilers even if its a hot day because Turkey is now a natural gas boss. The Turkish state isn't shy from selling access to these resources to foreign companies but this often leads to scandals and environmental disasters. Last year SSR mining, a Canadian company, had a huge mine collapse. Also, there are issues about cutting down forests to access mines that creates a lot of trouble for the government as it leads to widespread protests. So what's the minister is actually saying is that Don't worry we are not going to sell it to foreign companies that will ruin the environment this time in response to rumours that they are going to sell it. But in Turkey, nobody remembers anything so anything can happen.
- redwood 1y ago[flagged]
- notepad0x90 1y agomilitary alliance is related to trade dispute..how? The US needs them more than they need the US. They're strategically placed at the bosphorous containing russia's western advances and containing the baltics. Ukraine would be the next best thing, but they're not in NATO.
- engcoach 1y agoHonestly, the US doesn't need Türkiye. Europe does.
- saghm 1y agoYou want to modify the membership of a military treaty because of decision about who they sell metal to? There might be a convincing case to do what you're saying, but it's not at all obvious from the current context
- engcoach 1y agoRare earths are vital for military equipment. This action is coming from a country that NATO has trusted with its best technology and they continue to flirt with both Russia and China, NATO's primary threats.
- notherhack 1y ago"Trusted with its best technology" No. The US kicked NATO member Türkiye out of the F-35 program and denied them F-16 upgrades for a long time[1]. And the EU has denied Türkiye membership supposedly because they're not fully part of Europe (among other issues) while courting Georgia which is farther east. Türkiye is treated as a frenemy by the west. Good on them for making their own way. [1] https://balkaneu.com/turkeys-f-16-deal-stalls-as-focus-shifts-to-f-35s-amid-u-s-concerns https://balkaneu.com/turkeys-f-16-deal-stalls-as-focus-shift...
- stackedinserter 1y agoAt the same time, Canada pushes their extraction project https://www.mining-technology.com/news/canada-fast-track-critical-minerals/?cf-view https://www.mining-technology.com/news/canada-fast-track-cri...
- euroderf 1y agoForever playing both sides of the fence.
- liaoliao2 1y ago[dead]
- theirchoice 1y ago[flagged]
- engcoach 1y agoAllies shouldn't align with their block's primary geopolitical enemies...
- NickC25 1y agoIsrael has entered the chat.
- jstummbillig 1y agoEh. I can see how MAGAing it up to 11 might lead to some shifting of those blocks in a complicated world.
- pmarreck 1y agoI'd term it "theopolitical" more than "geopolitical"... which is both more ominous and closer to the truth IMHO. One particular dusty-book-infused worldview, for example, can cite an order of magnitude more xenophobic and violent passages directed towards specifically-named outsider-followers of certain other dusty-book-infused worldviews than all the others, for example.
- stronglikedan 1y ago> US hasn't done much for its "allies", either, no matter the party in power. Except for paying for the lion's share of whatever "agreements" and "accords" are entered into. ::shrug::
- SanjayMehta 1y agoThat will come to an end in due course when the world moves away from the dollar. It's already started, will take a few more years.
- ta9000 1y ago
- School-Cotton 1y ago> Türkiye Please stop. Erdogan is not in charge of what things are called in English, and Turkey has been called Turkey for hundreds of years. Calling it "Türkiye" would be as silly as switching to calling Germany "Deutschland" tomorrow because it tickles Friedrich Merz's nationalist pride.
- suddenlybananas 1y agoIt's unrelated, but this spelling of Turkey makes me irrationally angry. I don't see why I should be expected to change my language to suit the whims of nationalists when they don't call Greece "Ellada" or Armenia "Hayastan" in Turkish.
- StephenSmith 1y agoEvery country has rare earth elements. Just google "X discovers rare earth" where X is your country of choice and you'll find articles about how they have huge deposits. The underlying problem is the processing. China has figured this out and has cornered the market. Until other countries figure out how to process these materials, China will be able to leverage this capability to their advantage.
- liaoliao2 1y ago[dead]
- big-and-small 1y agoIt's have nothing to do with "figuring it out". Both mining and processing been figured out decades ago. But rare earth mining is disaster for ecology and western countries just don't want to pay the tall and deal with political consequences. Countries like China and Russia have advantage the they can do whatever they want without caring about protests or long term effects on population of regions where mining occurs. There quite few talks on the topic, but you can check this one by Dr. Julie Klinger of University of Delaware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQeXrkCqM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQeXrkCqM0
- maxglute 1y agoNot every country has economically extractable heavy rare earths, resource =/= reserve. X discovers rare earth is the same as X discovers plants, and then assume every country can build a robust biofuel economy. Reminder PRC has the MOST shale deposits in the world, they're just buried very deep and economically AND technically not productive to extract at scale. PRC's main choke hold is HeavyREE, more specifically processing of ionic clays that is GEOGRAPHICALLY SCARCE like economically extractable oil deposits, which enables economic leeching of heavy strategic rare earth AT SCALE. Think hunting whales for blubber vs drilling oil, supports entirely different tiers of proliferation and use. At scale is key, west never used HREEs at scale until PRC commoditized them by exploiting specific geology mostly limited to south PRC, Myanmar, parts of Brazil but deposits now also found in Australia because Australia has everything. So the real question is can long will it take AU+co to discover and build the entire HREE infra based on deposit types only PRC has real experience with.
- miroljub 1y agoOff-Topic: Why Türkiye? Why not keep using Turkey in English? I know they changed their name to Türkiye, but why would we change it in our languages? We still use Germany instead of Deutschland, India instead of Bharat, and Italy instead of Italia. So why make an exception for Turkey?
- m00dy 1y agoBecause we are born to be exceptional.
- jones89176 1y ago"Following an official letter submitted to the United Nations by the Republic of Türkiye, the country's name has been officially changed to Türkiye at the UN. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that a letter had been received on June 1 from the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu addressed to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, requesting the use of “Türkiye” instead of “Turkey” for all affairs." [1] "Foreign Minister Cavuşoğlu said in a tweet that the move would "increase our country's brand value". The country’s English language public broadcaster TRT World said, the move would help to disassociate the country’s image from the large bird of the same name."[2] [1] https://turkiye.un.org/en/184798-turkeys-name-changed-t%C3%BCrkiye https://turkiye.un.org/en/184798-turkeys-name-changed-t%C3%B... [2] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/turkey-or-turkiye-why-the-country-changed-its-official-name/y5ar25eim https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/turkey-or-turkiye-why-th...
- School-Cotton 1y agoSo what? The UN does not have the power to redefine what words mean in the English language, and neither does the Republic of Turkey. If Germany submitted an official letter somewhere purporting to change its English name to Deutschland, you should also not listen to them.
- happytoexplain 1y agoWhy the hostility? It's not like they changed the name of the Black Sea to the Sea of Turkey. It's not a "fuck you" move. Just keep spelling it the old way if you care for some reason.
- ramazanpolat 1y agoWhy is this in the "hacker" news?
- Maken 1y agoThe lack of rare earths could pretty much collapse the entire US' electronics industry.
- BeFlatXIII 1y ago…and we (USA) didn't give the Kurds their deserved autonomous nation as thanks for their help in Iraq to avoid pissing off the Turks.
- husav1k 1y agoIs the land yours to give?
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoArguably, the northern parts of Iraq, where the Kurds live, was ours to partition after Saddam Hussein’s fall. But Turkey doesn’t want a Kurdish state on their border, and the US wants good graces with Turkey for their anti-Russian missile silos.
- arctics 1y agoas stated many times before, rare earth mining isn't a major issue, capacity to process into something useful which requires tons of water and toxic chemicals is the real issue for the US since China controls lion's share of the market.
- OutOfHere 1y agoIn the English language, we need to stop spelling Turkiye as Türkiye. Note that I did not revert to the old spelling of Turkey. English does not have ü as a character. We spell all other countries using the A-Za-z character set, and no exception should be made for Turkiye. It doesn't matter how they want it spelled. If tomorrow they want it spelled Ṫüřḳïýe or Ĵăƥȃn̈ or Ǥëŗṁāņẙ, we should not have to oblige.
- speedylight 1y agoIf they don’t even have the refining infrastructure built yet what do they have to offer the US ( or any other nation) that we can’t get from China? Rare Earth isn’t actually rare, what’s rare is the ability to refine it into pure elements.
- johnrgrace 1y agoThe us has tons of rare earth ores, it's the refining the US lacks mostly because it's a nasty process that creates a lot of toxic waste.