The Trivium China Podcast

As the new year approaches, governments, corporations, and investors alike are asking: what will critical material supply chains look like in the year to come?In this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Cory Combs, Head of Critical Mineral and Supply Chain Research, discuss where global supply chains and diversification efforts stand today – and how they are likely to shape up in 2026.Starting from the latest need-to-know specifics and working up to the broader strategic takes from Team Trivium, the lads discuss:What's going on with China's general licenses and export trendsTrends and issues in US rare earth and broader critical mineral diversification efforts – including our take on the brand new international "Pax Silica" initiativeHow the rest of the world is responding to all this, both reactively and proactivelyHow China is responding to global diversification efforts – including where it is and is not pushing back, and whyPutting it all together, they take a stab at framing the bigger strategic issues ahead.We've all heard plenty about the tactics of supply chain decoupling – e.g., China's from US chips and Dutch lithography machines, and the US's from China's processed critical mineralsBut this all begs key questions, like: What is a desirable end state for both sides? And what does "security" actually look like? (Hint: it's not full decoupling.)Despite the fierce problems at hand, the gents land on a surprisingly optimistic vision of where US-China relations could land in the next few years – a happy note on which to enter the holidays after a tumultuous year.

At the end of each year, China's top economic policymakers get together for the Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) to discuss their goals for the year ahead.This year's CEWC wrapped up on December 11, and in this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, get together to discuss the ins-and-outs of the meeting's official readout.Warning: The readout from the CEWC is invariably a big-picture policy document that's frustratingly thin on detail.Deciphering what the leadership means takes a little bit of reading between the lines.And that's exactly what the gents do!They start off with their 30,000-foot takeaways (TL;DR: Beijing envisions 2026 looking a lot like 2025).Then they get into:Where we might expect extra government spendingWhether Beijing will double-down on the consumer goods trade-in programHow Beijing intends to boost consumption

In mid-2024, Beijing rebranded its overcapacity problems as “involution.” Does it matter? As the bard would say, a rose by any other name…And yet, over time it’s become clear that this was more than just a rebranding exercise. Along with the change in name came a subtle shift in how Beijing perceives its overcapacity problems – a shift that has important policy implications.In this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, talk all things involution. The gents discuss:How the concept of involution differs from that of overcapacityWhy Beijing doesn’t think overcapacity can exist in a global free marketWhat Beijing’s anti-involution efforts look likeAnd what it all means for the rest of the worldThen, Andrew wraps things up with a brief rundown of the most recent developments in the US-China trade truce.

On this week’s Trivium China Podcast, your loyal Trivium team digs into China’s key domestic and regional developments from the past few days.First, Trivium Co-founders Andrew Polk and Trey McArver discuss:The Party’s latest conference on law-based governance – and what it tells about how Xi Jinping views China’s legal and regulatory systemsXi’s motivations in refreshing and solidifying the various rules that govern Party and government behaviorChina’s related efforts to build out its foreign-facing legal toolkitThe gents then move on to examine the intensifying diplomatic row between China and Japan – and why both sides are unlikely to climb down.Then, in the second half of the pod, Andrew is joined by Trivium’s lead macro-econ analyst Joe Peissel to discuss:The recent, and curious, drop-off in fixed asset investment (FAI) in China, why it’s happening, and what it means for the wider macro-economic growth trajectory heading into 2026Fair warning: This one gets pretty wonky!

With the US and China having agreed to a détente over trade, now is a good time to take a step back from the day-to-day back-and-forth of measures and countermeasure, and look at the longer term implications of China’s new economic model for trade.In this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, kick off by discussing China’s surprisingly bleak October economic data, before wading into big picture trade issues.They discuss:How China intends to maintain export growth in the face of rising trade tensionsWhether the world is facing a China Shock 2.0, and how it will differ from the first China ShockAnd how countries might adapt to expanding exports of Chinese advanced manufactured goods