President Donald Trump signed a presidential determination Thursday authorizing the Commerce Department to impose export controls on certain industrial waste streams containing recoverable critical minerals, a step designed to keep strategic raw materials at home and expand supplies for advanced manufacturing.
The determination invokes the Defense Production Act, granting the Commerce secretary authority to restrict exports of recoverable critical minerals and materials embedded in finished products such as permanent magnets and lithium-ion batteries. According to a White House fact sheet, these materials can be reclaimed and recycled domestically rather than shipped overseas, preserving them as strategic resources for U.S. manufacturers.
For markets, the move reinforces the administration’s push to build a domestic critical minerals supply chain and reduce reliance on China. U.S. recyclers, rare earth producers, and companies involved in battery materials and magnet manufacturing stand to benefit directly. Should the export restrictions take full effect, global flows of key raw materials could face tightening pressure.
The action marks Trump’s latest use of the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to shore up the U.S. industrial base, following earlier invocations to promote oil development and coal-fired power generation. It comes after China imposed its own export controls on rare earth materials, disrupting supply chains and exposing America’s heavy dependence on Chinese processing. Although Washington and Beijing later reached a trade deal that eased some tariffs and export curbs, the Trump administration has continued to pursue alternative sources of critical minerals from domestic and allied suppliers.
Critical minerals have climbed higher on the U.S. policy agenda as industries from electric vehicles and defense systems to semiconductors require stable access to these materials. The push to retain recoverable minerals in end-of-life products reflects a broader effort to treat discarded goods as strategic “urban mines,” preventing valuable inputs from leaving the country.
By restricting the export of waste containing permanent magnets, lithium-ion batteries and similar items, the administration aims to strengthen domestic recycling and reclamation capabilities. In a landscape of intensifying global competition for critical minerals, such measures are increasingly seen as essential to securing supply chain resilience.
