A bipartisan U.S. House panel has escalated the fight over critical minerals from rhetoric to a legislative blueprint, accusing Beijing of using its dominance in processing to steer global prices and tilt manufacturing advantage toward China. In a 50-page report, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party argues that China’s command over refining and midstream conversion has made “true” prices for metals, especially rare earths and lithium, opaque, distorting investment signals for Western miners and processors.

The committee proposes codifying recent executive actions into statute and goes further, floating direct price controls, tighter oversight of price reporting agencies, the creation of a national minerals stockpile, and a centralized “critical minerals czar” to coordinate policy.

Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex going five days without an LNG cargo leaving is a rare kind of signal: not a price spike driven by fear, but a measurable breakdown in the physical flow of molecules from the world’s most important LNG export node. No loaded tanker has departed in five days, the longest such pause in data back to 2008, and no LNG carrier has transited the Strait of Hormuz since Feb. 28, when the US and Israel began strikes on Iran.

The background is that LNG is far less reroutable than oil in a crisis. Crude can sometimes be diverted, swapped, stored, and blended; LNG is constrained by liquefaction trains, specialized ships, receiving terminals, and contract structures.

China’s manufacturing activity continued to contract for the fifth consecutive month in August, as indicated by the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) released by the National Bureau of Statistics. The PMI rose to 49.7 from 49.3 in July, but it remained below the 50-point level that signifies contraction in the sector. This ongoing contraction puts pressure on Chinese officials to take measures to support economic growth, especially in the face of soft demand both domestically and internationally.