International Economics: IB Economics

This Bloomberg clip looks at how, perhaps a decade-late, the US are striving to challenge China's access to Africa's raw materials, and the spread of the Belt and Road Initiative. 

Given the importance of some of these raw materials to new technologies, US firms such as KoBold Metals are starting to invest in the continent, and this requires significant infrastructure investment. 

This Nouriel Roubini piece looks at the US-China trade dispute and the potential for it to escalate into a full-blown war - highlighting the competition for raw materials, and potential areas for co-operation. 

The EU is looking to diversify its supply chains, making them less China-dependent by aiming to ensure that by 2030 is isn't reliant on any one country for more than 65% of any strategic raw material, such as nickel or lithium. 

Additionally, there are also targets to increase the extraction, processing and recycling five critical minerals, although environmentalists fear that this might see a relaxation of environmental protections on mining, especially in countries such as Finland. 

The OECD is forecasting higher inflation across the developed world, with the UK expected to have 3% inflation by the end of 2022, but falling inflation in a number of other economies. 

The causes? Self-evident to be honest - higher raw material costs, supply chain issues and higher levels of consumer demand all play a part and can be shown by elementary AD-AS analysis.