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Critical minerals and strategic materials play a vital role in transformative technologies including greener construction, electric vehicles, solar panels, wind panels and batteries. Get the latest price trends, insights and forecasts for the these markets.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said critical minerals had become a “top priority” for the administration, arguing that decades of outsourcing mining and processing have created vulnerabilities across defense, semiconductor production and industrial manufacturing. Any restructuring, he said, “must be multilateral” to be effective.
US Vice President JD Vance delivered the strongest critique yet of current market conditions, calling the global critical minerals system “failing” and saying repeated price collapses caused new mining projects to “die on the vine.” He proposed forming a preferential trade zone among like‑minded economies, where reference prices would function as price floors supported by adjustable tariffs. The goal, Vance said, is to create sufficiently stable price expectations for long‑term project financing, especially in minerals where volatility routinely kills development.
While the proposed framework spans the broader critical minerals spectrum, tungsten emerged as one of the clearest early test cases. The market is small, highly concentrated and central to defense, aerospace and semiconductor value chains. Almonty Industries’ Sangdong project in South Korea will soon add new non‑Chinese supply, bringing the company into greater focus.
Almonty chief executive officer Lewis Black said the company – originally Canadian – is now deeply integrated into the US policy environment. Almonty is redomiciling to the US, holds a primary Nasdaq listing, and began reporting under US GAAP on January 1 2026. Black said Almonty is frequently in meetings with US agencies on rebuilding raw materials supply chains outside Chinese control, a process he sees as structurally aligned with Washington’s direction.
Black described 2025 as “transformational” for the tungsten company: Its Sangdong tungsten mine began active mining in December. Its renovation is financed by a $75 million loan from Germany’s KfW and Almonty expects to book revenue in the first half of 2026 and to turn profitable “soon, given current prices.” He called Almonty “the last credible tungsten mining company outside China at scale.”
In response to the Ministerial, Black said the US is seeking “a more integrated approach of supply chains and countrywide development among their allies” that could become “a long-lasting supply chain solution” benefiting both US consumers and allied producers.
As early as last November, the US government has thrown its weight behind Cove Capital’s tungsten push in Kazakhstan, with the Export‑Import Bank issuing a letter of interest for up to $900 million of the project’s $1.1 billion capital expenditure and the US international Development Finance Corporation signaling support. Washington has granted the venture trade‑advocacy status and was directly involved in negotiations, positioning the US as both financier and future off‑taker of the mine’s output, according to Cove Capital chief executive officer Pini Althaus.
The State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Iwao Horii gave a speech at the Ministerial, saying that its critical minerals supply chain is one of the most pressing and crucial we collectively face today, and emphasizing that Japan and the US “are in the same boat,” given “deteriorated supply chain disruptions.” He urged partners to prioritize “diversity, not concentration” and welcomed the launch of FORGE, a new coordination forum under the Ministerial.
In January, China implemented additional export controls on dual-use goods destined for Japan, following a political dispute stemming from Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s comments regarding Taiwan. As a result, exports of tungsten products such as ammonium paratungstate (APT) have been affected. Previous restrictions had significantly reduced shipments, and the latest measures have prompted major producers to cease exports entirely.
Responses in China, the leading global tungsten producer, were not muted. According to a tungsten producer source interviewed by Fastmarkets, the immediate effects of the Ministerial are expected to be minimal: “Domestic demand in China already surpasses supply, and local producers have limited exports to the United States. Even if the US and its allies establish new sources, it will require three to five years at least.”
According to a tungsten trader, the medium-term consequences depend on whether Washington transitions from political signaling to technical implementation, particularly regarding the calculation and enforcement of price floors.
For now, the Ministerial marks the first coordinated attempt by the US and its partners to build price‑stabilizing architecture for critical minerals. “With its concentrated supply base and emerging allied production, tungsten is positioned as an early indicator of whether the proposed trade bloc can reshape investment flows and reduce dependency risks across the supply chain,” the tungsten trader added.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for tungsten APT 88.5% WO3 min, fob main ports China was $1,500-1,550 per metric tonne unit (mtu) on Wednesday February 4, up by $125-200 per mtu from $1,300-1,425 per mtu a week earlier.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for tungsten concentrate 65% WO3, in-whs China was 620,000-640,000 yuan ($89,342-92,224) per tonne on Wednesday, up by 50,000-60,000 yuan per tonne from 560,000-590,000 yuan per tonne a week prior.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for ferro-tungsten export, min 75% fob China was at $196-200 per kilogram W on Wednesday, up by $26-28 per kilogram W from $168-174 per kilogram W in the previous week.
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