President Trump is working with his administration to fix American supply chains that have been heavily reliant on China for materials vital to military technologies. At Foreign Policy, Christina Lu details Trump’s push to secure a supply of tungsten, writing:

Alarmed by the United States’ exposure to China’s rare earths chokehold, the Trump administration is accelerating efforts to identify and plug any of the country’s other potential mineral vulnerabilities.

One such target is tungsten. Tungsten may not roll off of the tongue, or sound as alluring as rare earths, but the obscure metal is known for its density and exceptionally high melting point—making it a key component in everything from turbine blades to munitions that can pierce armor. World powers have long clashed over tungsten, also known as wolfram; in World War II, for example, the Allied countries sought to strangle Spanish tungsten flows to Nazi Germany.

Today, as with many of the world’s mineral resources, China overwhelmingly commands global tungsten supply chains, accounting for some 80 percent of tungsten concentrate production in 2024, although outside production has climbed.

“Tungsten is another one of these tiny—in terms of size—but very critical markets, in particular from a national defense and an aerospace perspective,” said Chris Berry, the president of House Mountain Partners, an independent metals analysis consultancy.

Though the United States once produced tungsten, the country hasn’t commercially mined the material in about a decade, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, forcing U.S. firms to instead depend on imports and recycling.

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