House CCP Committee Chairman Inquires With Canadian Firm About Supply of Critical Metal

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Jun 4, 2025 - 10:05 Updated: Jun 4, 2025 - 09:53
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House CCP Committee Chairman Inquires With Canadian Firm About Supply of Critical Metal

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) has sent a letter to Canada-based mining company Almonty Industries to inquire about a critical metal essential for U.S. defense technology that the United States relies on China to obtain.

Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), announced on June 2 that he had sent a letter to Almonty’s chairman, Lewis Black, over the company’s Sangdong tungsten mine in South Korea.
Tungsten is unique for its exceptionally high resistance to heat, thanks to it having the highest melting point of all known metals. Tungsten is exceptional in terms of hardness, especially in its compound form, tungsten carbide, which is nearly as hard as diamond. As a result, it is used in both military and aerospace systems, such as armor-piercing projectiles, missile nozzles, and hypersonic vehicles, as well as semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries.
Despite its importance, tungsten has not been produced commercially in the United States since 2015, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The agency noted that China produced over 82 percent of the global tungsten supply in 2024.
The USGS has designated tungsten as one of 50 critical minerals that are vital to the U.S. national security.

The United States “remains heavily import-dependent” for tungsten, notably buying from “sources tied to” China, Moolenaar wrote.

“This dependency poses a significant risk to our defense industrial base and warfighting readiness,” Moolenaar added. “As a result, ensuring a secure tungsten supply chain must in the near-term prioritize securing allied sources of tungsten ore and concentrates.”

Moolenaar cited Almonty’s announcement in January, in which the company said it intended to redomicile from Canada to the United States. “If completed, this move would position Almonty as a primary U.S.-based producer of tungsten ore and concentrates,” the lawmaker wrote.

In the January announcement, Black, Almonty’s chairman, pointed to China’s export restrictions on certain metals and was quoted as saying that “Almonty and its South Korean Sangdong Mine are poised to become a cornerstone for a transparent and reliable Western source of tungsten and molybdenum.”

Almonty’s announcement also said that 45 percent of Sangdong’s “potential long-term tungsten output is already committed to the United States” through agreements with Pennsylvania-based Global Tungsten & Powders.

In February, the Chinese regime announced it would implement new export controls on five metals in response to U.S. tariffs placed on it. Licenses would be required to export tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, indium, and molybdenum.

“The United States must secure a stable supply of tungsten ore and concentrates along with other minerals critical to U.S. national security,” Moolenaar said. He added that the select committee will continue to work on this issue to address “the emerging national security threats from [China’s] domination of critical mineral supply chains beginning with Tungsten.”

Moolenaar asked the Almonty chairman to answer a dozen questions, including when the tungsten mine will become operational, the mine’s maximum production capacity, data on the mine’s reserves, agreements or negotiations underway between Almonty and U.S. defense contractors or government agencies, and the percentage of tungsten to be made available to the U.S. defense sector.

“Does Almonty currently sell or deliver tungsten to Chinese offtakers? If so, what proportion of total output is directed to China, and under what contractual terms or limitations?” he asked in the letter.

The tungsten mine is located in Yeongwol, a county in South Korea’s Gangwon Province.
Almonty states on its website that its South Korean tungsten mine contains about 7.9 million tons of proven and probable reserves.
In January 2024, Black told South Korean English-language newspaper The Korea Herald that the Sangdong tungsten mine will operate for “100-plus years,” saying that an equal-size Almonty tungsten mine in Portugal “has another 50 to 60 years left” after having run for 136 years.

“The beneficiary of this material [tungsten] will be both the United States and South Korea. We have no intention of supplying outside of those two areas,” Black told the outlet.

The Epoch Times contacted Almonty Industries for comment and didn’t receive a response by publication time.

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