This story originally appears on Grist and is part of the collaboration of the climate table.

In the summer of 2023, Vasileios Tsianos, the vice president of corporate development at Neo Performance Materials, began to get calls from government officials on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Within the world of producing industrial material, Neo is best known for the production of rare earth magnets, which are used in everything from home appliances to electric vehicles. But these calls did not go over rare earth. It was about something significant: the metal gallium.

Neo regains a few dozen tonnes of gallium with high purity per year, mostly from the production of the semiconductor disc, in a factory in Ontario, Canada. In North America, it is the only industrial producer of the metal, which is used in not only chips, but also clean energy technologies and military equipment.

China, the world’s leading producer, has just announced new export control on Galliums, apparently in response to reports that the US government is considering restrictions on the sale of advanced semiconductor chips to China.

Suddenly people wanted to talk to Neo. “We talked to almost everyone” who is interested in producing Gallium outside China, Tsianos told Grist.

As Tsianos began to receive those calls, the tension over the 31st element on the periodic table – as well as the 32nd, Germanium, also escalated in a number of advanced technology. In December, China banned the export of both metals to the United States after the Biden Administration’s decision to further limit US Chip exports.

Now consider several companies that are employed in the US and Canada to expand the production of the rare metals to meet US demand. While Canadian critical mineral producers may be rising in a new geopolitical tit-for-tat, Trump must go through with his threat of imposing rates, US metal producers may see support from the new administration, which is asked for federal financing for critical minerals Projects to prioritize in an executive order of the day 1. Apart from the US and Canada, the observers in the industry say that the China’s export ban is aroused global interest to make critical mineral supply chains more diverse, so that no single country is a choking Has not about materials that are essential for high-tech future.

“This latest round of export ban places a lot of wind in the sails of critical mineral supply chain efforts, not only in the US, but worldwide,” said Seaver Wang from the breakthrough Institute, a research center focused on technological solutions to environmental problems, Grist says.

Gallium and Germanium are not exactly household names. But it occurs in products that are indispensable for modern life-and a fossil fuel-free society. With its impressive electrical properties, gallium is used in semiconductor chips that use their way to everything from cell phones to power converters in electric vehicles to LED lighting exhibitions. The metal is also used in the manufacture of rare earth magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines, in thin film cellar cell cells, and sometimes in commercially popular silicon solar photographic cells, where it can help increase performance and extend life.