China controls a metal that's key for the Iran war, sending the U.S. on a global hunt for more
Source: NBC News
May 25, 2026, 3:53 AM EDT
YEONGWOL COUNTY, South Korea — As the United States wages war on Iran, it is burning through stockpiles of advanced weapons and ammunition, including Tomahawk, Patriot and Precision Strike missiles. Replacing them will require a powerful metal, tungsten, whose production and refining is dominated by China — leading the U.S. to desperately search for it elsewhere.
Tungsten is used in fighter jets, bunker buster bombs, armor-piercing rounds and missile systems, making it indispensable for national defense. But the U.S. has had no active commercial tungsten mines since 2015, and the Trump administration has made it a mission to curb dependence on the Chinese supply.
One place the metal can be found is in the mountains of eastern South Korea, at a mine owned by a U.S. company that holds millions of tons of tungsten ore. “There are very few large-scale tungsten mines on the planet,” said Lewis Black, chief executive of Almonty Industries, which reopened the Sangdong mine in March more than 30 years after it shut down because of competition from China.
Tungsten has long been a “war metal,” Black told NBC News last month during a visit to the mine. In recent decades, it has also become a “backbone metal” in the technology sector, used in semiconductors, batteries, smartphones and more. “The demand for tungsten is going to only increase,” said Steve Allen, Almonty’s chief operating officer. “So having a resilient supply chain for tungsten is going to be extremely important over the next decade, two decades.”
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/china-south-korea-tungsten-iran-war-mine-rcna346266
TUNGSTEN is an element.
Originally known for this (perfected by GE) -
and obviously used for other critical stuff!