Malaysia clarifies that it still maintains ban on raw rare earths export despite US deal

The agreement between the two sides is that Malaysia would refrain from banning or imposing quotas on critical minerals or rare earth elements in exports to the US, ensuring no restrictions whatsoever in that flow chain. For some context: Trump’s visit to Malaysia looks to be a twofold one

And as mentioned in the linked post, Malaysia has been upholding a ban of raw rare earth compounds for a while now – only allowing for processed ones to be exported. And the thing about rare earth compounds is not so much the source but rather the processing capabilities. So with Malaysia having the largest rare earth processing facility outside of China, it keeps them in a spot of leverage with many countries in negotiating other arrangements such as the one on trade as seen with the US.

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.