U.S. tungsten – As the U.S. considers restoring domestic tungsten production, a metal central to hard munitions is suddenly back at the center of defense planning. China’s 2025 export restrictions have tightened supply and lifted prices, while the Pentagon urges more domestic
By the time U.S. forces launched their first strikes against Iran the next day after the Pentagon’s letter went out, a familiar supply chain headache had already moved into the open: the metal inside many hard-hitting weapons is running short.
In late February. the Pentagon sent a letter to a group of more than 1. 500 companies and academic institutions that work with the U.S. military, urging them to increase domestic production in response to the shortage of tungsten and other metals. Four weeks later, the U.S. had fired more than 850 Tomahawk missiles—more than nine times the amount the Department of Defense usually procures in a year. according to the Washington Post.
Tungsten is widely used in munitions, reportedly including in Tomahawk missiles. It is also at the heart of newer “Precision Strike Missiles.” Those missiles are designed to explode in midair. spraying more than 180. 000 tungsten pellets outward. A Center for Strategic and International Studies report from April estimated the U.S. used at least 40 of its roughly 90 “Precision Strike Missiles.” And the New York Times reported that these missiles had been detonated above civilian areas in the Iranian city of Lamerd in February.
With renewed strikes in Iran, the number of these types of weapons used is likely to grow. NBC News reported that leaders in the defense industry plan to meet this week with the White House about its dwindling supply of missiles.
The pressure behind the scenes is mineral-based. Tungsten is produced at scale by a single dominant supplier: China. In 2025. China produced more than 78 percent of the global supply of tungsten. which was nearly 94. 000 tons worldwide. according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey released earlier this year. In 2025, China put export restrictions on tungsten, and those limits have been felt as scarcity and higher costs.
The export restrictions have pushed the cost of tungsten ore upward globally since early 2025. In the U.S. the cost of importing tungsten increased steadily since 2018. but in recent months the price has had a sharp decline. according to a Scientific American analysis of data compiled by BusinessAnalytiq.
The U.S. itself stepped away years ago. U.S. companies stopped mining tungsten in 2015 when the cost of importing it undercut domestic production costs. Now, some firms are exploring U.S. production again as the shortage tightens.
Tungsten’s value in defense comes from its extreme physical properties. It was first isolated in 1783. It has the highest melting point of any element on the periodic table at 6. 192 degrees Fahrenheit. and its boiling point is 10. 706 degrees F—about the temperature of the sun’s surface. It also has the highest tensile strength of all metals and is denser than lead. qualities that make it highly desirable for armor-piercing and bunker-busting munitions.
The uranium of this story isn’t the battlefield—it’s the supply chain. Across the western parts of the U.S., there are significant tungsten deposits, according to a USGS report. And beyond weapons, tungsten is used for tools like saws and bits, including tungsten carbide and tungsten-tipped instruments.
Ali Haji, the CEO of American Tungsten, said that tungsten mining is only the first step. After the ore is mined. it is usually processed into a concentrate and shipped to a processor that turns it into ammonium paratungstate. or APT. Then the APT is heated to a high temperature in a process called calcination and subsequently reduced with hydrogen to produce tungsten powder that’s sold to manufacturers and other end users.
American Tungsten hopes to have its Idaho mine site producing the metal by 2027. Haji said the company eventually wants the mine to supply 8 percent of the U.S. demand for tungsten. In February. American Tungsten announced the results of an initial exploration of the site that suggested it contained large quantities of both tungsten trioxide and silver.
Mining doesn’t come without environmental consequences. Tungsten itself is largely nontoxic. but byproducts from mining—called tailings—contain other harmful metals. including arsenic. copper. zinc and lead. and can leach into the environment. Haji said American Tungsten’s approach avoids these issues by drilling above the water level. “We’ve got no discharge coming out from the site. and the grades are. generally speaking. three times higher than the global average that’s in production today. ” he said.
Other companies are also repositioning. Almonty Industries, an international mining company, announced it had purchased a tungsten mine in Montana last year and, earlier this year, relocated its headquarters from Toronto to the state.
The federal government has joined the push, too. In January of last year. the Department of Energy announced it was giving Texas-based MELT Technologies more than $5.7 million to produce tungsten carbide. The Department of Defense announced a $6.2-million grant to Guardian Metal Resources last year to conduct a prefeasibility study on a mine in Nevada. Vic Ramdass. the Defense Department’s acting assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy. said in a press release announcing the 2025 grant to Guardian Metal Resources: “Developing a domestic source for tungsten is one of our top critical and strategic mineral priorities.” Neither MELT Technologies nor Guardian Metal Resources responded to requests for comment.
The urgency isn’t limited to missiles. As tungsten supplies remain scarce, some industries are already adjusting. Drill bit makers who serve the oil and gas industry are replacing tungsten drill bits with steel, which wears more quickly.
The story is also catching up to a different kind of science. Recently, scientists have been experimenting with tungsten for shielding nuclear fusion reactors. In 2024. French and American scientists were able to contain plasma at 50 million degrees Celsius for six minutes by using a fusion device called a tokamak clad in tungsten instead of the traditional graphite tiles. But working with tungsten can be challenging. said Luis Delgado-Aparicio. the head of advanced projects at Princeton’s Plasma Physics Laboratory. in a press release: “This is. simply. the difference between trying to grab your kitten at home versus trying to pet the wildest lion.”.
With defense demand rising and tungsten tied to battlefield outcomes, the question becomes whether domestic supply can move fast enough. Haji said he hopes the U.S. government will help protect the nascent domestic suppliers of the critical supermetal. “I think some of that responsibility falls upon the government to put some sort of price protection in place. should the Chinese flood the market again. ” he said. “Companies such as ourselves have deployed a lot of capital to bring North American production online.”.
Tungsten’s scarcity is no longer just an industrial inconvenience. It is now threaded through wartime planning, procurement decisions, and the practical reality of what the U.S. can fire—and how quickly—when the metal inside those weapons is hardest to get.
tungsten U.S. defense missiles Tomahawk precision strike missiles tungsten pellets Pentagon supply chain mining China export restrictions USGS MELT Technologies Guardian Metal Resources American Tungsten Idaho mine Nevada mine tokamak nuclear fusion