What happened to a country's exports after it controlled them?

In the first calendar year after the year each of 6 export controls took effect, the controlling country's exports of the covered customs line were below their three-year average before in 6 of 8 cases, and below half of it in 5. All other exporters of the line together were above their own earlier average in 6 of the 8. The middle value of the index for the controlling country was 1, against 100 before, in a range from under 1 to 167. 4 further rows follow 2 measures that loosened earlier controls and are shown separately below. These are association only: a control comes with prices, other policies and demand, and a customs line is wider than the goods a control names.

For each control in the register whose goods fall inside one of this site's customs lines, the table shows the controlling country's exports in tonnes as an index of its average over the three calendar years before the year the control took effect (100), for up to three calendar years after that year (the year it took effect is not shown, because the control usually applied for only part of it and some dates are uncertain). Beside it is the same index for all other exporters together, and the controlling country's share of world export value. A line is read only where the controlled goods fall inside it, so the table is a small, uneven sample, and several rows overlap: Indonesia's nickel ore and bauxite appear under three controls each, and each control's before or after years can contain another.

Controls that restricted exports

Index of the controlling country's exports in tonnes (average of the three years before = 100); "others" is the same index for every other exporter together. "Under 1" means below half a percent of the base.

Measures that loosened earlier controls

How each line relates to the goods controlled

• Rare earth export quotas, including the 2010 cut and the first-half 2011 allocation (2010-12-28), HS 284690: Compounds of rare-earth metals other than cerium: includes oxides and other compounds the quotas covered. Cerium compounds (HS 284610) are a separate line, about as large, that is not shown. The register does not give the start of the quota regime and a 40 percent cut in 2010 implies earlier quotas, so the years before the anchor may already be under quotas; the anchor is the date of a news-reported cut.
• Indonesia bans exports of unprocessed mineral ores under the 2009 Mining Law (2014-01-12), HS 2604: Nickel ores and concentrates: the ore the ban covered. Year 3 (2017) falls after the January 2017 relaxation, and the three years before the ban were front-loaded ahead of it.
• Indonesia bans exports of unprocessed mineral ores under the 2009 Mining Law (2014-01-12), HS 2606: Aluminium ores and concentrates: the bauxite the ban covered. Year 3 (2017) falls after the January 2017 relaxation, and the three years before the ban were front-loaded ahead of it.
• Indonesia bans exports of unprocessed mineral ores under the 2009 Mining Law (2014-01-12), HS 2603: Copper ores and concentrates: the register says concentrates above a minimum purity could keep shipping, under an export tax, so much of this line is the exempted good.
• WTO ruling on rare earth, tungsten and molybdenum export restrictions; quotas removed (2015-01-01), HS 261100: Tungsten ores and concentrates: one of the products under China's export quotas, which were removed after the ruling. Annual tonnes on this line swing widely, and some years show quantities that do not fit their values.
• WTO ruling on rare earth, tungsten and molybdenum export restrictions; quotas removed (2015-01-01), HS 2613: Molybdenum ores and concentrates: one of the products under China's export quotas, which were removed after the ruling.
• Indonesia partly lifts its raw ore export ban for low-grade nickel ore and washed bauxite (2017-01-12), HS 2604: Nickel ores and concentrates: low-grade nickel ore exports were partly allowed again. The years before are the 2014 ban itself, and the years after include the 2019 halt and the 2020 ban.
• Indonesia partly lifts its raw ore export ban for low-grade nickel ore and washed bauxite (2017-01-12), HS 2606: Aluminium ores and concentrates: washed bauxite exports were partly allowed again. The years before are the 2014 ban itself.
• Tanzania bans exports of raw mineral concentrates (2017-03-03), HS 2603: Copper ores and concentrates: the concentrates the ban covered. The register could not match the entry date to a legal instrument, and a settlement and a permit for stockpiled concentrate came in 2019 and 2020.
• Indonesia bans all nickel ore exports from 1 January 2020 (2020-01-01), HS 2604: Nickel ores and concentrates: the ore the ban covered. The years before include the 2017 relaxation boom, and exports were halted from 28 October 2019, before the effective date used here.
• Indonesia bans bauxite ore exports from June 2023 (2023-06-10), HS 2606: Aluminium ores and concentrates: the bauxite the ban covered. The ban took effect on 10 June 2023, so the year of the ban itself, which holds the first months, is not shown.
• Export licensing for high-purity artificial graphite and natural flake graphite (2023-12-01), HS 3801: Artificial graphite and preparations: includes the high-purity artificial graphite the licensing covered, but by weight about two fifths of the line is carbonaceous electrode pastes and other products. The natural flake graphite the licensing also covers is a different line and is not shown. The years before are a steep uptrend, and the year it took effect (2023, 816,000 tonnes) was already above the base; the one year shown (2024, 961,000 tonnes) is 118 percent of 2023.

Some controls in the register that are not shown, and why

• China's gallium and germanium licensing (2023): gallium and germanium have no customs line on this site.
• China's ban on exporting rare earth processing technology (2023): it controls technology, not goods.
• Namibia's ban on unprocessed critical minerals (2023): the register marks its status unconfirmed.
• Russia's ban on alloy steel and tungsten scrap exports to listed states (2022): the site's only scrap line (HS 7204) covers all ferrous scrap, not just alloy steel, the ban applies to listed states only, and there is no tungsten scrap line.
• Zimbabwe's ban on raw lithium ore exports (2022): the only customs line here that holds lithium ore (HS 2530) also holds the concentrate the ban did not cover, which is where the growth is.
• China's 2010 rare earth quotas, on the rare-earth metals line (HS 2805): that line is mostly, by weight, alkali and alkaline-earth metals, and the rare-earth metals inside it fell while the line rose.
• Indonesia's copper concentrate ban (2023 to 2025): its effective date is 2025, so there is no full calendar year after it in the data.
• China's antimony licensing (2024): it took effect in September 2024, so there is no full calendar year after it in the data.
• Malaysia's ban on raw rare earth exports (2024): it took effect in January 2024, so there is no full calendar year after it in the data, and the site has no customs line for raw rare earths.
• Russia's limit on enriched uranium exports to the United States (2024): the customs line here is natural uranium, not enriched uranium, and there is no full calendar year after it.

The register also holds controls that took effect in 2025 and 2026, and several from late 2024; none has a full calendar year of data after it, so none is listed one by one.

Why this cannot show cause

• A customs line is not the controlled good. Each line mixes goods, so exports can move for reasons inside the line that have nothing to do with the control.
• Controls arrive with other things. Prices, other countries' policies, demand and company decisions all move in the same years, and a control is often eased, extended or reversed. Exporters often ship ahead of a ban, so the years before can be unusually high, and some baselines already sit under an earlier regime.
• "Others" includes any diversion. The index for all other exporters rises if buyers turn to them, so it reflects any such diversion as well as the world background; it is not a clean comparison group.
• Tonnes are the weight of the goods as shipped. For ores that is wet ore, not contained metal, and ore grade can change between regimes. Annual tonnes and values sometimes disagree (China's rare-earth compounds in 2016, and Indonesia's nickel and bauxite ore in 2024, where recorded quantities are missing or tiny), and the table uses tonnes so that price swings do not drive the index; the data also hold value, and the share column uses it.
• Few, overlapping cases. 12 control-and-line pairs from 8 controls is too few to say what a control usually does, and the pairs are not independent.
• Timing. The anchor is the year the control took effect, or was announced if no start date is recorded. Where the register's date is a news report or could not be matched to a legal instrument, the row says so.

CEPII BACI HS92 vintage V202601 (exports by customs line) and this site's export-controls register. Final year of data: 2024. Generated 2026-10-22. Data: control-trade.json.