However, America is right. China’s dominance over critical minerals means that continuing to place full faith in the invisible hand would be naive and unsafe. China has spent decades building control over minerals, bankrolling projects at home and acquiring assets abroad. Its producers have consolidated into behemoths that the state can control and which have the market power to deter would-be competitors by flooding global markets—even if that means taking temporary losses.America’s task, therefore, is to strike a balance. On the one hand, it needs to insure against the risk that China cuts off exports again, and to deter it from doing so by raising the cost of further restrictions. On the other, it needs to nurture markets.