Santa Checks the Supply Chains Twice: Who's Naughty and Nice in Critical Minerals
Naughty Risks from China Dominance and the Push for Diversified, Secure Supply Chains in 2025
As the world races toward electrification, advanced defense systems, and renewable energy dominance, a handful of obscure elements buried deep in the Earth's crust have become the new geopolitical gold rush. The U.S. Geological Survey's freshly released 2025 List of Critical Minerals, now expanded to 60 commodities, serves as the definitive scorecard for what's essential to American economic and national security. Published in November 2025, this science-driven roster highlights materials vulnerable to supply disruptions, with rare earth elements flagged as posing the highest potential economic costs if cut off.
At the heart of the tension lies China's commanding grip on global processing and refining. Beijing controls over 90% of rare earth refining, nearly all graphite processing, and dominant shares in gallium, germanium, antimony, and tungsten. Recent export restrictions, imposed throughout 2024 and into 2025 on materials like gallium, germanium, antimony, seven heavy rare earths, tungsten, bismuth, indium, and molybdenum, have turned theoretical risks into real-world headaches, spiking concerns over everything from electric vehicle batteries to semiconductor production.

