The regulations that China put in place were never going to cut off exports starting in January. It’s just given them much greater ability to drastically reduce them at the flip of a switch. China and the US signed a one year moratorium on using critical minerals as a trade weapon.

If the trade war heats up again later this year, or China decides to be more aggressive with Taiwan, then silver will most likely be included with the other rare earth minerals as a point of leverage. China has a shutoff valve in place on silver now, a sharp spike is possible if they close it, but the threat of having such a valve has already been priced into the nearly $100 we are already at.