When two of the world's most powerful leaders sit across from one another, the stakes often extend far beyond the room — and in the case of Trump and Xi, they reach into the motors of electric vehicles, the screens of devices, and the guidance systems of weapons. China's decades-long cultivation of rare earth dominance has transformed seventeen obscure elements into instruments of geopolitical leverage, leaving manufacturers across the globe dependent on a supply chain that runs, almost entirely, through Beijing. The summit is less a moment of resolution than a signal — a reading of the diplom