Tungsten Shortages Drive Renewed U.S. Interest in Domestic Mining

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has exposed a critical vulnerability in the U.S. defense supply chain: a severe shortage of tungsten. As a metal characterized by an extreme melting point and unmatched tensile strength, tungsten is essential for manufacturing high-performance military hardware, including armor-piercing munitions and bunker-busting missiles. With China currently controlling over 78 percent of global production and having imposed strict export limitations in 2025, the U.S. is facing an urgent need to secure its own supply.

This scarcity is particularly acute due to the high volume of munitions expended in recent operations. Reports indicate that the U.S. has utilized hundreds of Tomahawk missiles and specialized Precision Strike Missiles—which rely on thousands of tungsten pellets—at a rate that far outpaces annual procurement. The resulting depletion of stockpiles has prompted the Pentagon to issue a formal call to action, urging domestic industrial and academic partners to ramp up internal production capabilities to ensure national security.

While the U.S. ceased domestic tungsten mining in 2015 due to the lower costs of international imports, the current geopolitical climate has rendered that economic strategy obsolete. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified significant tungsten deposits across the American West, providing a viable path for reviving domestic extraction. Transitioning back to local production is not only a matter of defense readiness but also a strategic necessity for industries reliant on the metal for heavy-duty drilling and cutting equipment. As defense leaders meet with the White House to address dwindling inventories, the push for domestic mining is expected to become a central pillar of U.S. industrial policy.