Trump just celebrated the third birthday of the bull market by wiping 2% of the S&P 500, criticizing China over its great tug of war for rare earths.

Investors entered Friday morning with cautious optimism. The S&P 500 index drifted higher for most of the week, hitting new highs along the way. But by midday, sentiment had changed sharply after Trump issued a lengthy resolution Truth is a social function It reports, among other things, that the United States is considering a “massive increase in tariffs on Chinese products” coming into the United States.

“Some very strange things are happening in China!” Trump wrote against the backdrop of a scheduled meeting later in October with President Xi Jinping in South Korea, ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. China has “become very hostile,” Trump wrote, claiming that controls on rare earth exports would clog global markets for the valuable resource. And again and again in 2025, Trump’s trade regime has been very tariff-heavy China is confronting itwhich holds the trump card of rare earths, essential for high-tech manufacturing.

The S&P 500 was down 2% in afternoon trading, while the S&P 500 was down 2% in afternoon trading. Dao The Jones Industrial Average fell more than 600 points. The technology and green energy sectors, both of which rely heavily on rare earth metals such as neodymium and dysprosium, bore the brunt of the selling.

Rare earths are real risks

Rare earth elements — a group of 17 minerals important for the production of everything from smartphones and wind turbines to missile guidance systems — have long been a choke point in U.S.-China relations. China controls more than 60% of global production and nearly 90% of processing capacity.

Trump’s post accused Beijing of “a rather sinister and aggressive move, to say the least.” He said he had not spoken with his Chinese counterpart, but was surprised by the new restrictions, and that “there seemed to be no reason” to go ahead with meeting Xi in two weeks.

Chinese technology companies saw sharp declines, with Alibaba, Baidu, and JD.com among the hardest hit; Alibaba shares fell 10%, Baidu shares fell more than 8%, and… JD.com By more than 6%.US technology stocks with significant exposure to China, e.g Nvidia,AMD, and Teslaalso fell; NVIDIA shares lost 2.4%, AMD shares fell 5.8%, and Tesla shares fell 3.9%.

On the other hand, companies related to rare earth metals saw huge gains. MP Materials shares rose as much as 15%, and USA Rare Earth shares rose as much as 19%.NioCorp Developments shares rose 8%.​