The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - All That Bitchin' Won't Keep China Around || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

It's Friday evening, the office is packing up for the weekend, and the boss decides it's the perfect time to announce something big. So, I hope you enjoyed your weekend of mulling over the idea of what a 100% tariff on all Chinese imports would look like.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://bit.ly/4n7L0xN

Hey everybody, Peter Zion here coming to you from Colorado. It is the 10th of October, and it's just after closing time in Washington, D.C. And right after everybody closed for the day, Donald Trump said that there's going to be 100% tariff on everything coming from China by November 1st, if not before, because the Chinese are putting restrictive policies on their exports of rare earth materials, most notably to the United States. Rare earths are materials that are produced in trace amounts as a byproduct of the refining and mining of other metals, most notably silver lithium copper. You basically have to take the concentrate that's left over once you've gotten the primary stuff and then go through a series of refining steps that are very energy intensive and very polluting. And China has cornered that market. So they produce more than 80% of all of these materials.

In some cases, it's a functional 100% monopoly. Anyway, a lot of these materials help other properties emerge in more traditional things that can be used very heavily in things like defense materials. and so the Chinese have always found this to be a very useful pressure point. They're also very much used in semiconductors. Anyway, the Chinese have restricted their exports. Trump has said no more and is now basically saying that he's going to double or more of the tariffs that are in place. And that's just the beginning.

Okay, now before anyone makes this about trade or may I make it a Trump, I need to remind you guys of something. The Chinese are dying out. They already have more people aged 54 and over than 54 and under. And within 10 years, they will not have enough people under age 60 to run. an economy. So, it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you produce or export or import. You need to assume that that trade relationship is going to go to zero. It doesn't matter if you're exporting soy or beef or semiconductors or ethane or anything. Zero. Zero is where this is going. It doesn't matter what you import from China, whether it's transformers or wire or process chemicals or

fertilizer or anything. It doesn't matter. It's going to zero. It doesn't matter. It's going to zero. The only wiggle room here is the time frame. Either the Chinese die out over the next 10 years and it goes to zero or the Trump administration puts into place an onerous terrace and by November 1 or maybe even before, it goes to zero. Either way, it is going to zero. So everyone, everyone needs to plan for that happening. Does the time frame matter? Of course it matters. Would I like to have more time? Of course I would like to have more time. But to pretend that this is a purely political question that can be negotiated away is a fallacy and if that is your position, you're going to lose everything. So quit your bichin and start your planning for a world without China

sooner or later.