Alarmed by america’ publicity to China’s uncommon earths chokehold, the Trump administration is accelerating efforts to establish and plug any of the nation’s different potential mineral vulnerabilities.
One such goal is tungsten. Tungsten might not roll off of the tongue, or sound as alluring as uncommon earths, however the obscure metallic is recognized for its density and exceptionally excessive melting level—making it a key element in every little thing from turbine blades to munitions that may pierce armor. World powers have lengthy clashed over tungsten, also referred to as wolfram; in World Battle II, for instance, the Allied international locations sought to strangle Spanish tungsten flows to Nazi Germany.
Right now, as with most of the world’s mineral sources, China overwhelmingly instructions world tungsten provide chains, accounting for some 80 % of tungsten focus manufacturing in 2024, though exterior manufacturing has climbed.
“Tungsten is one other certainly one of these tiny—by way of dimension—however very vital markets, particularly from a nationwide protection and an aerospace perspective,” mentioned Chris Berry, the president of Home Mountain Companions, an unbiased metals evaluation consultancy.
Although america as soon as produced tungsten, the nation hasn’t commercially mined the fabric in a few decade, based on the U.S. Geological Survey, forcing U.S. companies to as an alternative rely on imports and recycling.
That won’t have involved U.S. policymakers a decade or so in the past. However as minerals extra broadly have turn out to be a flash level in latest U.S. commerce spats with China, U.S. officers have grown more and more determined to diversify away from Beijing and search new suppliers—together with by imposing a 25 % tariff on tungsten in 2024.
China, too, seems to have singled out tungsten as a geopolitical strain level because it has retaliated towards the Trump administration’s commerce measures this yr. After President Donald Trump unveiled 10 % tariffs on Chinese language imports, Beijing broadly expanded export controls over tungsten and different minerals in February.
U.S. producers have felt the monetary pressures of China’s curbs, based on Oliver Friesen, the CEO of Guardian Steel Sources, a tungsten exploration and improvement firm with initiatives in Nevada. “There’s an acute scarcity proper now, and that’s why we’ve seen the value greater than double,” he mentioned.
The Trump administration is waging an aggressive marketing campaign to resuscitate home mineral manufacturing and safe new provide chains globally. In the previous couple of months, minerals have dominated most of the Trump administration’s worldwide offers; domestically, the U.S. chief is more and more taking fairness stakes in non-public mining companies.
Among the many U.S. chief’s flurry of efforts, tungsten is more and more making headlines.
Take, for instance, Washington’s latest wave of diplomacy with Central Asian leaders. The blitz included the information that U.S. mining funding agency Cove Capital and the federal government of Kazakhstan have agreed to develop a tungsten mining and processing plant within the latter nation, backed by a $1.1 billion capital expenditure.
The Trump administration helped negotiate the deal, and based on a doc seen by Reuters, the metallic from the mission can be used “to prioritize U.S. authorities and American industrial wants.”
But by eyeing initiatives in Kazakhstan, the Trump administration could also be venturing into comparatively unfamiliar territory.
“Central Asia just isn’t an easy space to do enterprise,” mentioned Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Vital Minerals Safety Program on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, a Washington, D.C.-based assume tank. “Traditionally, it’s the place China and Russia have dominated, not simply within the mining, however within the infrastructure.”
With this deal, the Trump administration is looking for to usher in each private and non-private capital, Baskaran added. In line with Cove Capital, the U.S. Export-Import Financial institution has issued a letter of curiosity for $900 million in financing, whereas the U.S. Worldwide Improvement Finance Company additionally issued a letter of curiosity.
“Some of these offers are messages to the international entities of concern—primarily China—that, look, america is severe about constructing provide chains that shift away from China,” mentioned Berry.
The Kazakhstan deal is just the newest effort to spice up U.S. tungsten provide safety. In July, the U.S. Protection Division introduced a $6.2 million award to Golden Steel Sources—a subsidiary of Guardian Steel Sources—to advance its Pilot Mountain tungsten mission in Nevada.
“Tungsten is a necessary alloying metallic for aerospace, floor automobiles, munitions, and lots of different protection methods,” Vic Ramdass, appearing assistant secretary of protection for industrial base coverage, mentioned in a assertion asserting the award. “Creating a home supply for tungsten is certainly one of our high vital and strategic mineral priorities.”
Guardian Steel Sources is seeking to ship industrial manufacturing from each of its tungsten initiatives earlier than Trump leaves workplace, Friesen, the CEO of Guardian Steel Sources, instructed Overseas Coverage.
Curiosity from U.S. lawmakers has additionally surged. In June, the Home Choose Committee on China despatched a letter to Almonty Industries, a Canada-based world mining firm, inquiring concerning the firm’s “intent to help U.S. nationwide safety wants” by way of its tungsten mining mission in South Korea.
Almonty’s South Korean deposit is among the world’s largest tungsten sources, based on the firm, and the agency agreed to buy a tungsten mission in Montana in October. Almonty Industries has additionally introduced plans to redomicile from Canada to america, which might make the corporate a “major U.S.-based producer” of tungsten, the letter famous.
“The US should safe a steady provide of tungsten ore and concentrates together with different minerals vital to U.S. nationwide safety,” Republican Rep. John Moolenaar wrote within the letter.
“The Home Choose Committee on the Chinese language Communist Occasion will proceed working this time period on addressing the rising nationwide safety threats from the PRC’s domination of vital mineral provide chains starting with Tungsten,” Moolenaar added, utilizing the acronym for the Individuals’s Republic of China.
For all of this consideration, challenges loom over potential initiatives in Kazakhstan and in america. In any case, securing new provide chains isn’t only a query of finding a brand new useful resource; it additionally entails establishing an entire host of processing and manufacturing capabilities.
“Usually, mining and processing initiatives include loads of dangers that may have an effect on timelines, and in a spot like Kazakhstan, there’s additionally loads of infrastructure that can have to be constructed to help this mission,” mentioned Baskaran.
“It actually depends on not simply capital, but additionally allowing, technical know-how, infrastructure—but it surely’s an necessary first step,” she added.
Even with this new push, it is going to probably take a minimum of a number of extra years for america to start home manufacturing, specialists mentioned.
“It is going to be a minimum of 2030 earlier than I believe you’d see a practical home tungsten manufacturing,” mentioned Berry, “and that may be a really optimistic appraisal.”
