Had an eye opening dinner last night with two CEOs working to build an American supply chain for battery CAM and rare earths. These are two important drivers of electrification, robotics, EVs etc. The difficulty in beating China won’t come down to tariffs but mercantilism. The Chinese have 1-2 “National Champions” for critical parts of the global economy. They then subsidize these NCs as necessary, dump product to impact spot price markets and shape profitability with loans and grants that, collectively, make these National Champions impossible to beat. So what should America do? Hard question without a simple answer. But one thing is obvious, we are not nearly as organized as China is to even be able to point to a few National Champions in critical areas. One example: the DoE and DoD have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try and do rare earth extraction from coal tailings - at 100 ppm. Commercial companies can barely make a profit at 6k-60k ppm. What was the point of this?! The money spent on coal tailings could have instead helped build domestic manufacturing and supply chains years ago. But the large capital allocation and meeting of the minds to make these decisions isn’t happening. We need better organization and top-down capital allocation if we are to play this game with China and have a remote chance of winning. The skill and prowess exists in the US and its allies. But Chinese mercantilism is a fierce and dynamic force that needs to be met head on with equally smart tactics and capital allocation by America.