Key Developments in Critical Minerals to Watch in 2026

Article Highlights:

• Building out alternative supply chains that don’t include China remains the best way for countries like America to ensure long-term supply chain stability. To that end, 2026 will be a pivotal year for investment and supply chain diversification away from China.
• In 2025, the Trump administration made developing domestic and partner-country sources of critical minerals a top priority. America entered into the U.S.-Australia Critical Minerals Framework, which committed $1 Billion to joint minerals production projects. The U.S. also partnered with Saudi Arabia on a rare earths refinery, and entered into additional agreements with Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand.
• Domestically, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a flurry of initiatives designed to ramp up domestic mineral extraction, including a $1 billion initiative to advance mining, processing, and recycling technologies; a $500 million grant to enhance commercial-scale processing of battery minerals; and several other large-scale projects. 

Going back to 2023, critical minerals and raw material supply chains have become more scrutinized than ever. This is in large part due to an explosion in export controls from China, the largest producer of critical minerals and rare earth elements in the world. These export controls, mainly targeted at the U.S. and other western-aligned nations, have caused global supply chains to take a detailed look deep into the sub-tiers of their supply chains to try and develop alternative supplies of raw materials for their products.

The reality for many companies, however, is that China dominates the mining and extraction of the materials incorporated into their manufacturing inputs. Take the mineral gallium, for example. The material is commonly used in electronics applications, lasers, medical devices, and solar panels, among other applications. China controls approximately 99% of all gallium refining globally. This means that even if companies are able to secure mines and raw gallium, they will still need to identify alternative processing facilities to avoid depending on China at some stage of their supply chain. 

While not every critical mineral is dominated to the same degree as gallium is by China, nearly all minerals restricted for export by China do have limited mining and processing alternatives. Coupled with long lead times for mineral mining and processing equipment, as well as long ramp-up periods for new processing facilities, developing alternative critical mineral supply chains remains an intensive, laborious process that can take months or years. 

Nevertheless, building out alternative supply chains that don’t include China remains the best way for countries like America to ensure long-term supply chain stability. To that end, 2026 will be a pivotal year for investment and supply chain diversification away from China. Below, we look at four of the key topics companies that rely on critical minerals or rare earth elements should be watching out for throughout the year.

The Durability of the U.S.-China Trade Agreement 

On October 31^st, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced an agreement that led to, among other details, the suspension of Chinese export controls on most critical minerals it dominates production of for a one-year period scheduled to end in November 2026. This agreement was a lifeline for many industries that would have otherwise faced immediate pressure from the export restrictions that China announced just before the deal was made. 

Trade Deal Benefits Global Manufacturing 

Though the trade agreement was technically between the U.S. and China, the global manufacturing community also benefitted, as China’s mineral export restrictions applied to all countries. In addition, China had been scheduled to significantly enhance the minerals that were subject to export restrictions, and had expanded restrictions to finished products and assemblies containing these minerals. While some saw these looming restrictions as strategic posturing ahead of consequential trade negotiations, these new restrictions remain on the books—albeit in a suspended capacity—and could come into place when the trade deal expires in late 2026. 

While the pressure was relieved in the short-term, lingering questions remain around the durability of the trade deal. The deal could be extended prior to November, but there’s no guarantee that will happen, considering the fraught, combative geopolitical relationship between the two countries. 

While it’s clear that the U.S. and the European Union are working hard to develop alternative, non-China mineral supply chains, there will not be enough new capacity at these new facilities to replace the position Chinese companies currently hold in the mineral market. Therefore, this trade deal and the geopolitics surrounding it should be closely monitored in 2026 as there could be an immediate and substantial impact if the deal were to be interrupted or suspended without a replacement plan in place.

How Quickly Can the U.S. Ramp Up Critical Mineral Production?

In 2025, the Trump administration made developing domestic and partner-country sources of critical minerals a top priority. On the international front, America entered into the U.S.-Australia Critical Minerals Framework, which committed $1 billion to joint minerals production projects. The U.S. also partnered with Saudi Arabia on a rare earths refinery and entered into additional agreements with Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand, all of which granted U.S. investors a “right of first refusal” for mineral asset sales in those countries.

DOE Critical Mineral Announcements

Domestically, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a flurry of initiatives designed to ramp up domestic mineral extraction. These include:

• $1 billion initiative to advance mining, processing, and recycling technologies
• $500 million grant to enhance commercial-scale processing of battery minerals
• $275 million in funding to enhance resource extraction efforts from waste tailings.
• $80 million to develop next-generation mining methods.

The US also took equity stakes in several mining and processing companies. Finally, the government provided a massive $2.3 billion dollar loan to ensure a lithium mining project reached full construction.

Taken together, it's clear from all of these developments that the Trump administration is taking the development of alternate supply chains for critical minerals seriously. What remains to be seen, though, is how quickly the U.S. can ramp up production of commercial volumes of minerals. Considering China’s dominance over the supply chains of many minerals, the U.S. and its partners have a long way to go to supply the volumes of minerals that are needed for manufacturing domestically. In 2026, it will be important to monitor how successful these projects are, including whether they stick to their production timelines and the quality of the minerals that are produced.

Will Mineral Recycling Volumes Substantially Increase? 

Over the past few years, mineral recycling and tailings processing have been identified as a key production method to develop additional supply of critical and rare-earth minerals. In many regards, this is the easiest method to produce rare-earth minerals domestically, but recycling efforts for rare-earth minerals often require complex separation and extraction processes. This has led to a slow but steady increase of critical mineral recycling facilities. 

Projects like the “Big Hill” Tailings Project that ramped up in 2025 ship waste tailings from the DRC to Belgium to be processed into germanium. Likewise, recycling centers like those at the UK’s Tyseley Energy Park and one run by Redwood Materials are able to recycle critical minerals from existing products, reducing the need for new material to be purchased abroad. Numerous other companies have received funding to develop commercial-scale mineral recycling facilities across the U.S., Canada and Europe that are scheduled to come online in 2026 or 2027. 

One question continues to loom over all these recycling developments, however: will these efforts be able to keep pace with surging demand for these materials? According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), demand for critical minerals could double by 2030, as clean energy technologies are increasingly deployed around the world. While the U.S. and the EU have taken steps to ramp up recycling efforts, the reality is that for many critical minerals, recycling can only supply a small fraction (often between 5-20%) of overall demand, depending on the specific mineral. 

A key trend to watch in 2026 will be the development of new recycling facilities and the volumes of minerals they are capable of producing. 

Do Western Companies Continue to Sell Stakes in Mines to Chinese Companies? 

Unlike many state-owned Chinese companies that operate in the mining space, Western companies have a short-term fiduciary duty to deliver returns to their shareholders. In the mining space, this has led to many Western mining companies selling their rights to mining projects that are perceived as risky, or not producing enough value, to Chinese companies. 

For their part, Chinese companies have shown a higher tolerance for risk, and generally accept longer profitability time horizons for many mining projects. In 2025 alone, major projects like the Ngualla Project in Tanzania, Raygorodok Gold Mine, and the Abujar Gold Mine in Ivory Coast were all sold by Western companies to Chinese firms. 

While new mines are now being developed in the West with more government subsidization, the lower risk tolerance demonstrated by many Western mining companies will pose a barrier for businesses looking to de-risk critical mineral supply chains away from China. While rebuilding supply chains is a continuous effort, the historical trend of Western companies selling their stakes to Chinese organizations—which runs completely counter to the larger project of achieving critical mineral independence—is worth watching in 2026.  

Critical Mineral Volatility Demands Effective SCRM

Critical minerals supply chains are more volatile than ever. Shifting geopolitical tides can trigger sudden changes in critical mineral and rare earth sourcing—especially when China is at the center of them.

Businesses looking to ensure long-term stability must understand what minerals are in their projects, what alternate components are available, and what they can realistically do from a supply chain perspective if Chinese minerals are suddenly no longer accessible. If 2025 functioned as something of a warning year, then 2026 should be the year that companies take decisive action to achieve greater critical mineral independence from China. With the risk of an overnight supply chain shutdown persisting, businesses would be smart to begin carrying out an internal analysis before it’s too late. The earlier a business can act, the more potential options it will have available to build a more resilient critical mineral supply chain.

How can Z2 Help Analyze Your Supply Chain? 

Supply chain risk management platform Z2 can play an integral role in assessing critical mineral vulnerabilities. The software offers access to millions of out-of-the-box full material declarations (FMDs) that can instantly tell companies which minerals are in their components. Moreover, Z2 has millions of supply chain relationship datapoints that can show organizations where the minerals in their parts may be coming from, and can help businesses build out alternative sourcing for their components 

Finally, Z2’s minerals data can provide a detailed picture of the overall industry for each mineral in your parts, allowing strategic decision makers to understand the broader landscape and make informed decisions based on those insights. 

To learn more about Z2 and how its features can help your business understand critical mineral vulnerabilities and start the process of future-proofing your sourcing, schedule a free trial with one of our product experts.

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