The White House on Monday moved to try to push countries like China out of mineral supply chains flowing into military equipment.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring companies to vet and map the flow of minerals they use and make sure they don’t come from adversarial nations. This could help counter Beijing, which has a vise grip on the mining and processing of key minerals.
Officials during a call Monday said the U.S. could eventually emerge as a supplier of materials like germanium needed for fiber optics and infrared technology.
“With respect to China, they almost certainly have mapped our defense industrial base. They’ve been doing that for more than a decade or longer,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters on the call.
