While the rest of the world was trembling over trade war-related tariffs in April 2025, China simply approached the supply chain and pulled out a few crucial bolts. The bolts are composed of tungsten, indium, yttrium, dysprosium, and terbium—elements that don’t garner much attention but are essential to the operation of your fighter jet, electric car, and solar panels, which transform from clean energy wonders to expensive roofing tiles. These minerals appear on secret government danger lists before conflicts or cleantech projects are secretly shelved.
National security and renewable energy projects at risk as China halts exports of critical minerals
China’s actions were not, at least not officially, a ban. They referred to it as export licensing. It seems like a topic that could truly interest a trade lawyer. Do not be misled, however: this was a surgical strike. They didn’t have to refuse. All they had to do was respond to the appropriate paperwork with “maybe later.” With the help of these licenses, Beijing can regulate not just the location of these commodities but also their speed, amount, and politically advantageous recipients.
Washington should therefore settle in to wait behind the rope line. The license application must specify the end use, including the country of final destination. It is unlikely that licenses for end uses in the United States will be granted. The surprising thing is that all of this was predictable. While the U.S. was busy outsourcing, divesting, and gleefully dismissing any analysis that concluded, hey, maybe it’s a bad idea to be 90% dependent on a single country with whom we’re constantly starting trade wars and rattling sabers, China had been building its dominance over these supply chains for decades. However, China’s recent restrictions on some materials are not arbitrary.
They are selected with the accuracy of someone who has studied defense procurement orders and product specifications from the United States. Take dysprosium first. Most electric motors that must operate at high temperatures, and virtually all of them do, use neodymium magnets doped with dysprosium. Neither your Mustang Mach-E nor your F-35 has a working motor or thermal stability. It is important to note that there is no enchanted mine in Wyoming or Quebec that is waiting in the wings, and China virtually controls the whole supply of dysprosium. The dysprosium won’t leave China if it doesn’t leave the country. It’s the spinal cord of electrification, and the spinal cords are in China right now.
Tungsten is another significant mineral that will no longer be imported from China
Bullets are made bulletproof by this metal. Any material harder than stale marshmallows can be sliced, drilled, punched, or penetrated with tungsten. Since the Obama administration, the United States has not produced significant quantities of it, and China now accounts for 80% of global production. Good luck getting those volumes at scale without waiting years and spending four times as much. Of course, you could try Vietnam or Portugal. Not all ammunition contains tungsten. It can be found in the tiny vertical interconnects between layers of circuitry in semiconductor chips, CNC machine tools, and high-performance alloys, from deep drilling rigs to jet engines.
The industrial basis of a particular large nation attempting to regrow precision manufacturing at scale was the aim of China’s licensing wall on tungsten, not a single industry. Moreover, terbium, a cousin of dysprosium, has been acquired for high-efficiency motors in electric vehicles (EVs), offshore wind turbines, night-vision goggles, sonar systems, and magnetostrictive actuators. Terbium comes from China, is processed in Chinese facilities, and is licensed by Chinese bureaucrats. No viable substitute involves performance compromises, re-engineering, or violating thermodynamic laws.
Lastly, indium is a crucial transparent conductor known for its screen lighting, fiber optics communication, and laser diode lasing. Without it, touch screens will become paperweights, and 5G base stations will look like 3 G nostalgia boxes. The U.S. has zero domestic production, while Canada, South Korea, and Japan produce some. The global market relies heavily on Chinese supply, making it challenging to ramp up semiconductor fabs or solar plants when indium sources dry up.
