What if China re-imposes its gallium and germanium export ban?
Gallium/germanium controls are a Chinese near-monopoly (~90%+ of refined supply), so the real pinch is defense radar and compound-semis (RF GaN), not the broad Nasdaq the cascade leans on. When Beijing first weaponized these in 2023-24 and again in Dec-2024, spot Ga/Ge doubled but the SOX barely flinched — TSMC/Nvidia use little. Forward angle: this time it bites US/EU primes (LMT, RTX) more than logic fabs; the yuan move is overstated since China gains leverage, not loss.
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The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 0–6 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. After the November 2026 suspension lapses, Beijing reinstates gallium and germanium export bans and extends them beyond the US, hitting chip and radar makers. :: The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Semiconductor supply risk ▲ · Trade tension ▲ · Defense spending ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.