As we did during Covid, the government is helping U.S. companies to meet national-security needs.
By Peter Navarro | Wall Street Journal | July 14, 2026
China is using its control over the supply chain for rare-earth and other critical minerals to dominate global commerce and project state power—and the world is finally waking up to the danger.
For decades, Beijing has pursued industrial dominance through state subsidies, currency manipulation, intellectual-property theft, forced technology transfer, state-directed overcapacity, blocked market access, dumping, forced labor and lax environmental standards. Its economic aggression has advanced across industries—steel and aluminum, shipbuilding, solar panels, batteries, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, telecommunications equipment, drones, robots, machine tools and advanced electronics.
Beijing’s critical-minerals gambit is a serious escalation. Critical minerals are the foundation of modern military power. They are also important to semiconductor manufacturing, artificial-intelligence infrastructure, aerospace systems, electric vehicles, satellites, fiber optics, advanced sensors and emerging energy technologies—the tools by which free societies defend themselves.
Beijing’s targets now reach across the digital-defense periodic table: Gallium for semiconductors and radar. Germanium for fiber optics, infrared optics, night vision and satellite solar cells. Graphite for battery anodes. Antimony for ammunition and flame retardants. Tungsten for munitions and machine tools. Indium for touch screens and AI data-center photonics. Lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese for batteries in vehicles, drones, grid storage and military electronics.
China uses “starve, not strangle” tactics designed to control the critical-minerals valves without closing them entirely. Its bureaucracy slows licenses, rations access, raises costs and reminds every boardroom that the road to strategic manufacturing runs through Beijing.