Recessions in Brazil and Argentina - its main export markets and sources of tourists - propelled the country into economic crisis in 2002.

BBC: Uruguay profile

In a 2001 paper Andrew Bernard of Dartmouth College and Bradford Jensen, now of Georgetown University, analysed the sources of America's export boom in 1987-92.

ECONOMIST: Export or die

Japanese sources, however, reported that the export of rare earths to Japan had, in fact, stopped as did the Times itself in a follow-up story.

FORBES: China's New Economic Warfare