Recently, the People's Republic of China banned the export of rare earth magnet production technologies for national security interest.

Note, not the particular rare earth magnets themselves. The technologies that produce them.

There are 18 rare earth elements - the 15 lanthanides as well as yttrium, scandium, and lutetium. They have wide technological and commercial uses.

Most of these use cases are small - the OEC values global rare-earth metal compound trade volume in 2021 at about $2.7 billion - but they are vital. Thus why we call them the "vitamins" of the tech economy.

But one use case in particular stands out to me over all the others: Magnets.

And China's tech export actions hint at their strategic importance.

In just a few years, China won a near-complete monopoly on the production of these unexpectedly critical magnet materials.