The Weekly Worldview

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By Rejecting Chinese Technology, Americans Pay Three Times More for Transportation
November 3, 2025
Alexander van Wijnen
Investment Strategist

The debate around import tariffs often centers on their short-term impact on inflation. But the long-term impact receives far less attention. As the United States and Europe raise trade barriers against Chinese technology, their populations miss out on large cost advantages. Today, domestically-produced electric cars and -buses from the United States can cost up to three times more than their Chinese equivalents. Given the political unrest over the cost of living across the Western world, it is possible that public opinion will turn against these protectionist policies.

In the United States, domestically produced electric cars and buses cost up to three times more than in China

Source: Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at Brookings and JATO Dynamics via Palladium Magazine
Biotech Shows the Western World Still Underestimates China
October 27, 2025
Alexander van Wijnen
Investment Strategist

The Western image of China as merely the world’s factory for cheap goods has been dismantled step by step, but the final realization has yet to sink in. In 2020 the pandemic exposed China’s dominance in pharmaceutical ingredients, and in 2025 the West has discovered its control over rare earth metals. In the meantime, China became a global leader in producing high-end batteries and electric vehicles. Still, one shift remains underestimated: China’s ability to push the frontier of innovation. A clear example is biotechnology, where China has emerged as a world leader in developing new medicines — capturing 31% of the global market after starting from zero just a few years ago.

Percentage of licensed medicines by large pharmaceutical companies originating from Chinese biotech companies

Source: DealForma
The Bigger Story Behind China’s Recent Move on Rare Earth Metals
October 20, 2025
Alexander van Wijnen
Investment Strategist

China’s export controls on rare earth metals are part of a broader strategy. Since 2024 the BRICS-countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South-Africa) have reportedly been working toward the launch of a new metals trading platform - covering everything from gold and silver to rare earths - that will operate independently of Western exchanges in Chicago and London, as well as Western payment systems like SWIFT. Together, the BRICS control roughly 84% of the world’s rare earth reserves. Much like the Arab OPEC countries during the 1973 oil crisis, the BRICS could use their dominance in critical resources to exert pressure on the United States and Europe.

The BRICS countries control nearly all of the world's rare earth metals

Source: Atlantic Council based on data from the IMF, World Bank and the United States Geological Survey. Rare earths are a group of 17 metallic elements essential for modern technologies such as smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and military systems.