China Tightens Its Grip on Yet Another Critical Mineral

More than a year after China rattled the West by imposing export controls on gallium and germanium, two powerful chipmaking inputs, Beijing flexed its muscles again this month by announcing curbs on another key, yet often overlooked, metal: antimony. 

Antimony may seem like an obscure material, but it is vital in the defense industry, with critical uses in nuclear weapons, infrared missiles, and night-vision equipment. No country maintains as dominant a grip on the metal’s global trade as China, which accounts for nearly half of all production and more than 60 percent of U.S. imports. Beginning Sept. 15, Beijing will require exporters to apply for a license for certain antimony products as well as require permission for related smelting and separation technology exports.

For Washington and its European partners, this latest move has only reinforced the importance of diversifying away from Chinese-dominated mineral supply chains. Yet it has also underscored an uncomfortable reality: No matter how eager Western powers are to slash their dependence on China, they will likely remain vulnerable to such measures in the immediate future, given the many challenges in securing alternative sources and the necessary financing.

“Everyone knows that you can’t rely on China,” said Gracelin Baskaran, an expert in critical mineral security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank. But the United States is “caught in an impasse” between its political and national security interests and a challenging market environment, including whipsawing commodity prices and high capital costs, she said. 

“China is 100 percent reminding the world how much power it has when it comes to those commodities that you need for national security, energy security, and economic security,” she added. 

The risks of supply chain over-dependence on a geopolitical rival were thrown into the spotlight when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and weaponized its natural gas supply against its European buyers. At the time, Russian exports accounted for about 47 percent of Europe’s total gas supply, and Moscow’s retaliatory energy cutoffs pitched dependent nations into a severe energy crisis. But those measures also turbocharged European efforts to transition away from Russia’s supply, and in 2023, less than 15 percent of Europe’s total gas supply came from Moscow. 

China, similarly, has wielded its critical mineral dominance as leverage in geopolitical spats, perhaps most notably when it cut rare-earth exports to Japan in 2010. After unveiling gallium and germanium trade curbs last summer, Beijing also imposed new restrictions on exports of graphite—which underpins electric vehicle batteries—last year.

“It started with gallium and germanium, so it started with semiconductors. It moved on to graphite, with batteries,” said Tom Moerenhout, a critical minerals expert at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. With antimony, he said, “we’re really at the heart of national defense.”

As Beijing has leveraged its supply chain might, addressing the critical mineral challenge has “truly become [a] bipartisan priority for the United States,” said Jane Nakano, an energy security expert at CSIS. 

Yet breaking away from China’s grip on the industry, itself the product of decades of research and investment, comes with its own unique set of challenges. 

That’s because securing new mineral supply chains isn’t just a question of increasing mining; it requires an entire ecosystem of refining, processing, and manufacturing systems, all of which are costly and take many years to build. The United States is also grappling with its own domestic problems, including a talent squeeze in the industry and long-standing permitting delays. Private firms getting in the game must also navigate a notoriously risky and competitive market, complicated by volatile prices and shifting geopolitical tensions. 

“It’s not just like the Chinese turn off the tap, and you turn the tap on,” said Christopher Ecclestone, a mining strategist at the financial advisory firm Hallgarten & Company. He said Chinese companies came to dominate the market decades ago after they sunk prices to below production costs—effectively forcing Western companies out of the industry.

The United States itself hasn’t mined antimony for more than two decades. But one company, Perpetua Resources, is hoping to change that, with big plans to develop an antimony and gold mine in Idaho. In a statement to Foreign Policy, Jon Cherry, the president and CEO of Perpetua Resources, said that China’s latest antimony curbs should “set off alarm bells everywhere.” 

“It really is validating what we’ve been trying to highlight for years now—that this is important to have a secure supply of here at home, and we are vulnerable if we don’t have it,” said Mckinsey Lyon, Perpetua Resources’ vice president of external affairs.

Lyon cited lengthy time frames, largely the result of the permitting process, as one of the firm’s biggest challenges thus far with its Stibnite Gold Project. “We identified this resource and started on this path in 2010, and if everything stays on track, we won’t have minerals out of the ground until 2028,” she said. “That is an 18-year timeline, from knowing we have the minerals to being able to get them out of the ground.”

“There is an industry perspective that while America is one of the most secure places to mine once you have a mine, there is a very high bar to entry that really dissuades a lot of companies from even trying,” she added. “It can be very, very hard for an American mining company to get the capital and raise that private investment that it needs in order to get through this length of a process.”

Perpetua has been awarded up to $75 million in funding from the Department of Defense, the company said, and has received a letter of interest from the U.S. Export-Import Bank for an up to $1.8 billion loan; it plans to submit a formal application later this year. The company estimates that it could produce 4.2 million ounces of gold and 115 million pounds of antimony, according to its 2020 feasibility study, and anticipates receiving a final Record of Decision from the National Environmental Policy Act process by the end of 2024.

“Assuming the schedule stays on track, we could begin a three-year construction process in 2025,” the company said, and it expects that the mine could be operational in 2028. “However, we will investigate all opportunities to advance production timelines sooner for critical products like those needed for the U.S. Department of Defense.”

Moerenhout said that as China has imposed new mineral export restrictions, the United States is “entering a completely different period.” “Top-level officials and governments realize this is a massive issue for national security, for energy transition technologies, and for the digital economy, and it is absolutely not allowed to no longer take action,” he said. 

Yet even with greater action, nothing will happen overnight—and until then, Washington will likely remain vulnerable to Beijing’s threats in certain mineral supply chains. 

With permitting and mining, “these things take time,” Baskaran said. “If anything, this should be a really powerful reminder to the U.S. that, even though a restriction may come … you can factor in years before you’re actually able to domestically respond to that.”