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China controls 98% of the global Gallium production.
Donald Trump brought a wet noodle to a gunfight.
China is allso preventing the export of its rare earths processing technology which could cause the West decades of research.
https://uscriticalmaterials.com/bey..., China produced 98,and antimony (48 percent).
Donald Trump brought a wet noodle to a gunfight.
China is allso preventing the export of its rare earths processing technology which could cause the West decades of research.
https://uscriticalmaterials.com/bey..., China produced 98,and antimony (48 percent).
Beyond Rare Earths: China’s Growing Threat to Gallium Supply Chains
More federal support can also accelerate promising efforts that are already underway to find viable domestic supply alternatives. The Idaho National Laboratory is leading the development of integrated separation and processing systems for rare earth–rich ore bodies, such as those at the Sheep Creek deposit in Montana. Notably, recent geological assessments at Sheep Creek suggest the site contains the highest concentrations of gallium found in any known U.S. deposit. Private sector partners such as the U.S. Critical Materials Corporation are actively seeking to scale this discovery into commercial production.
Photo: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Brief by Aidan Powers-Riggs, Brian Hart, Matthew P. Funaiole, Scott Thomsett, Simon Zieleniewski, and Tim Rose
Published July 17, 2025
The Issue
China is increasingly weaponizing its chokehold over critical minerals amid intensifying economic and technological competition with the United States. The critical mineral gallium, which is crucial to defense industry supply chains and new energy technologies, has been at the front line of China’s strategy. To date, China’s chokehold on rare earth metals has attracted more attention than its restrictions on gallium, and some have downplayed the potential consequences of disruptions to gallium supply chains. Yet CSIS analysis reveals the extent to which China can wield gallium to impose significant economic harm on the United States and its allies and partners. This CSIS Brief unpacks the scope of the problem and offers policy recommendations on how to bolster U.S. and allied economic security and deny China a key tool of economic warfare.
Introduction and Key Findings
Amid spiraling trade tensions with the United States, Beijing has brandished a new arsenal of economic weapons, with few proving more potent than its export controls on critical minerals. As of May 2025, China had restricted the export of at least 16 key minerals and alloys, many of which are essential inputs for products ranging from consumer electronics to F-35 fighter jets. These measures have struck deep into U.S. and allied supply chains, and appear to have given China substantial leverage in its ongoing trade and technology negotiations with the United States. As the impacts of these controls hit global markets, examining the case of gallium—a little-known but crucial metal—offers a powerful warning signal. China has a near-total monopoly over gallium production, accounting for a startling 98 percent of the world’s primary supply. The mineral was among the first to be caught in the escalating tit-for-tat trade restrictions between the United States and China, making headlines when it landed on Beijing’s export control list (alongside germanium) in July 2023. That initial broadside was largely a warning shot designed to showcase Beijing’s capacity to impose pain on sensitive U.S. supply chains while limiting broader impacts on the global economy. Now, China is tightening the screws. New research by CSIS, supported by data provided by minerals supply chain intelligence company Rovjok, reveals that China’s gallium restrictions are having a greater impact than previously anticipated. This is due to both tighter enforcement against transshipment and new controls on specialized gallium extraction technologies that are not available outside China.
This brief presents several key findings:
Responding to this mounting crisis will require the United States to take urgent steps to develop alternative sources of gallium supply and extraction technologies. Fortunately, the financial investments needed are relatively modest and promising solutions are well within reach—but only with a level of sustained policy attention that has only just begun to materialize.
- China’s gallium export controls have incrementally tightened in response to expanding U.S. technology restrictions. Its measures have ratcheted up from licensing requirements and end-user controls to a total export ban targeting the United States.
- Global dependence on Chinese primary gallium is now causing a gallium supply crunch that may soon impact key production lines as firms draw down their stockpiles.
- China’s most recent round of export controls on gallium extraction technologies could impede U.S. and allied efforts to quickly develop economically competitive alternative supply sources.
- Market forces alone are unlikely to solve the problem. Targeted government investment will be critical to breaking China’s gallium monopoly and undercutting its geopolitical leverage.
Gallium’s Role in China’s Geoeconomic Strategy
China’s use of critical mineral export controls is not a new phenomenon, but it has evolved in recent years from a policy bludgeon to a precision tool. A defining early example came in 2011, when Beijing temporarily withheld rare earth exports to Japan amid a territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. China backed off from those restrictions within months, but not before sending rare earth prices skyrocketing over 80 percent and leaving Japanese officials scrambling for alternatives.
In 2019, China trained this threat against the United States. As trade frictions flared under the first Trump administration, Chinese leader Xi Jinping publicly visited a rare earth processing facility in a conspicuous warning about the potential costs of further escalation.
Over the ensuing years, China further strengthened its hand by developing a legal and regulatory framework to transform these scattered actions into a comprehensive export control system. In 2020, the Chinese legislature passed the Export Control Law, which gave Beijing streamlined authorities to exercise “control on the export of dual-use items.” Unprecedented in Chinese export control regimes, the law included a provision claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction, meaning even entities outside of China could be held accountable for violating its statutes.
In July 2023, China put these tools to the test, announcing new licensing requirements limiting the export of gallium and germanium. ...
The order marked the most stringent export controls China has put in place. For the first time, the ruling asserted the long-arm jurisdiction that China built into its Export Control Law years earlier, declaring that “any organization or individual of any country or region” would be held responsible for violating it. In effect, the rule formally outlawed the re-export or transshipment of gallium and other covered materials to the United States through third countries or territories, closing a major enforcement loophole.
Less than one month later, Beijing took its gallium export controls even further in a quiet but consequential move. On January 2, 2025, MOFCOM amended its export control catalogue to include several of the key extraction technologies used to separate gallium metal from its host ores (generally bauxite or zinc). The addition indicates that China is now taking steps to preserve its leverage over gallium supply chains by withholding the most cost-efficient means of extracting it.
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Key Point 1: Diverging prices within and outside of China reflect a growing supply crunch.
Since China’s export controls went into effect in August 2023, the price of gallium has diverged sharply between domestic Chinese and international markets. Within a month of the initial announcement, low-purity gallium prices in the Rotterdam exchange spiked by over 43 percent as Chinese suppliers halted shipments while applying for export licenses from MOFCOM.
This surge can be partially explained by a widespread rush by international buyers to stockpile gallium before the controls took effect. However, prices did not come back down even after demand stabilized, reflecting the impact of a supply-side squeeze caused by reduced Chinese exports of gallium.
The cost of gallium outside of China, represented by its listed price on the Rotterdam exchange, has continued to significantly diverge from domestic price points as Chinese exports have fallen. By early 2024, prices appeared to have largely decoupled into two distinct markets, with gallium sold outside of China at nearly double the price of that within China (see Figure 2). Chinese customs data helps tell the story, showing that the country’s average monthly gallium exports drop significantly after August 2023 (see Figure 3).
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Key Point 2: Non-Chinese sources of gallium remain reliant on feedstock originally sourced from China.
China’s decision to target gallium was driven by unique market dynamics that provide Beijing with an unusual degree of leverage over the mineral’s global supply. In 2024, China produced 98 percent of the world’s low-purity gallium, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS)—a figure well above its share of production of other targeted minerals such as germanium (68 percent) and antimony (48 percent). As a result of this near total monopoly, China can credibly withhold access to gallium supply from downstream markets, leaving buyers with few short-term alternatives.
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China’s stranglehold over gallium supply chains is rooted in its leading position in aluminum production. Gallium is not extracted directly from the earth—instead, it is recovered as a byproduct of processing other materials, primarily bauxite (the mother ore of aluminum), with a small amount also from zinc.
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However, China’s new export controls should complicate this sense of security. MOFCOM’s licensing system now requires importers of Chinese gallium to provide detailed end-user tracing information, and foreign firms that supply U.S. companies with gallium at any point in the supply chain risk losing access to their only viable source of raw gallium if discovered. This creates strong incentives for foreign firms to halt service to their U.S. customers, as the marginal U.S. market for gallium likely does not justify the risks involved. These dynamics are further heightened by uncertainty over the extent of China’s enforcement.
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Key Point 3: New export controls on gallium extraction technology further undercut the price competitiveness for non-Chinese producers.
China’s dominant position over gallium supply chains extends beyond the raw material itself. A more opaque but similarly consequential constraint lies in the specialized resin technology used to extract gallium from bauxite ore processing.
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Recognizing the strategic value of this technology, Chinese authorities in 2025 quietly expanded their export controls to include the resin itself. A January update added “technologies for extracting gallium metal from alumina mother liquor using ion-exchange or resin methods” (通过离子交换法、树脂法等方法从氧化铝母液中提取金属镓的技术和工艺) to MOFCOM’s export control list. Industry sources have reported that exports of the high-performance resin have ceased entirely due to these new restrictions.
For the United States and its allies, this presents a fundamental obstacle to rebuilding domestic gallium supply chains. Even with feedstock and refining infrastructure in place, producers outside of China are unlikely to achieve competitive costs without equivalent resin performance. Until incentives are put in place to support the production of high-performance resin at adequate scale, non-Chinese producers will struggle to compete.
Gallium’s Strategic Significance
Gallium is used within a wide range of technologies, from advanced semiconductors to light emitting diodes, laser diodes, and permanent magnets. Yet, gallium’s true importance to the United States is not reflected properly in official reporting. The USGS shows gallium consumption in the United States to be around 20 t per year. However, taking into account imports of gallium-based wafers, magnets, and LEDs, consumption is likely far higher, up to 200 t per year (see Figure 8).
Critically, gallium’s outsized importance to key defense supply chains has elevated its value as a source of strategic leverage for China. China’s decision to open its controls with gallium—rather than other more commercially important minerals—allowed it to signal its capacity to disrupt U.S. and allied defense production while avoiding broader damage to its own economy.
The importance of gallium to advanced defense systems is difficult to overstate. Gallium compounds enable a class of “wide bandgap” semiconductors that outperform silicon in extreme operating conditions. Gallium nitride (GaN) transistors, for example, can operate at higher voltages and temperatures with lower losses, making them ideal for advanced radar, electronic warfare systems, and other applications requiring efficient power conversion.
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Gallium-enabled radar systems will also play an irreplaceable role in any efforts to build a layered nationwide missile defense shield, like the “Golden Dome” proposed by President Donald Trump. For example, Lockheed’s GaN-based Long Range Discrimination Radar—which is currently undergoing field testing in Alaska and will likely go into service next year—would form a crucial layer in the system’s defense against ballistic missile attacks.
Gallium-enabled radar systems will play an irreplaceable role in any efforts to build a layered nationwide missile defense shield, like the “Golden Dome.”
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Key U.S. allies and security partners, ranging from Poland to Saudi Arabia to Taiwan, have also placed orders for U.S.-built GaN-enabled radar systems in recent years. As a result, supply vulnerabilities extend beyond the United States to its most important strategic partners.
Breaking China’s Monopoly
The extent to which China can derive leverage from its monopoly over gallium production fundamentally depends on how fast alternative supply sources can come online. If plants outside of China can rapidly begin or restart gallium extraction, then China’s ability to threaten global supply chains will quickly diminish. While promising initiatives are underway to establish new gallium production capabilities, decisive government action is needed to ensure these efforts are protected from China’s market manipulation.
The Limits of Market Forces
On its face, the gallium problem appears to have a clear market solution. As China restricts global supply, the rising global price of gallium should entice new producers into the market, creating alternatives to Chinese supply. The more China uses its leverage, the less it should have left.
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These factors reflect the limits of relying on market forces to respond to China’s export controls. While current market conditions (characterized by rising demand, highly constrained supply, and high prices) have spurred considerable interest from new gallium producers worldwide, a long-term solution will require sustained government action if it is to incentivize firms to enter the market and stay there.
U.S. Domestic Opportunities
Given these market limitations, government intervention will be necessary to ensure that short-term, long-term, and emergency requirements for gallium material can be readily met. Some U.S. government agencies have taken initial steps toward finding alternative suppliers, yet more work is needed to move beyond assessments toward concrete action. This includes taking swift action to support promising efforts by private companies. Federal investments to expand domestic gallium production have begun to take shape. In 2024, the ...
More federal support can also accelerate promising efforts that are already underway to find viable domestic supply alternatives. The Idaho National Laboratory is leading the development of integrated separation and processing systems for rare earth–rich ore bodies, such as those at the Sheep Creek deposit in Montana. Notably, recent geological assessments at Sheep Creek suggest the site contains the highest concentrations of gallium found in any known U.S. deposit. Private sector partners such as the U.S. Critical Materials Corporation are actively seeking to scale this discovery into commercial production.
... The episode mirrors the fate of Australia’s Pinjarra gallium refinery, which was forced to cease operations in the 1990s when low prices and a lack of policy support erased commercial margins. Both cases illustrate the importance of sustained government incentives, stable offtake contracts, and clear policy signals that strategic minerals production will be rewarded over the long term.
International Collaboration with Allied Producers
Rebuilding gallium supply chains at speed cannot be achieved through domestic sources alone. While establishing a reliable domestic supply is a reasonable strategic objective, it should be secondary to the urgent task of quickly developing large-scale gallium production outside of China. Ultimately, these efforts should prioritize projects that add gallium side-stream capacity at large-scale aluminum refiners, most of which are located outside of the United States.
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Australia represents perhaps the greatest near-term opportunity for large-scale gallium production. Alumina refineries operated by South32 and Alcoa in Western Australia account for the largest such capacity outside of China, and given that gallium is recovered as a byproduct of alumina refining, these operations offer compelling economies of scale. Industry analysis suggests that building side-stream gallium recovery plants at these sites could be cost-effective and yield up to 40 t annually.
Separately, Nimy Resources is exploring secure gallium supply chains for U.S. defense applications through a collaboration with M2i Global. The partnership reflects the value of demand-side signaling from the U.S. government to spur up-front investment from private firms.
Japan, in partnership with the United States and South Korea, has committed to strengthening critical mineral supply chains, including gallium, under a trilateral framework announced in June 2024. Japan has a long history of utilizing gallium in its advanced electronics industry and is among the largest producers of gallium outside of China. The agreement highlights the shared priority of developing enhanced refining and processing capabilities—critical steps in reducing dependence on Chinese intermediates.
Europe also shows signs of renewed momentum. Greek metals group Metlen plans to extract gallium as part of a €295 million expansion to its alumina production capacity, aiming for 50 t of gallium annually by 2027. This initiative has been designated as a strategic project under the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act, ensuring priority access to permits and financing. Meanwhile, Germany’s Stade refinery—once a major gallium producer—has announced plans to restart operations by 2027, potentially adding another 40 t per year to the global supply.
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Conclusion and Policy Recommendations
By doubling down on its gallium and other critical mineral restrictions, China’s leaders appear to have calculated that the country’s dominance over the global supply of minerals upstream of critical high-tech supply chains provides it with meaningful leverage over its rivals. Current trends reflect the worrying possibility that they could be right.
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