A critical mineral is any mineral that is essential to a country’s economy or national security and has a supply chain vulnerable to disruption. In the United States, the official list now includes 60 minerals, ranging from well-known metals like lithium and cobalt to lesser-known elements like gallium and hafnium. The designation isn’t permanent. It shifts over time as technology changes, new deposits are found, and geopolitical relationships evolve.
How a Mineral Gets the “Critical” Label
The Energy Act of 2020 established three criteria a mineral must meet to be considered critical in the U.S. It must be essential to economic or national security. Its supply chain must be vulnerable to disruption. And it must serve an essential function in manufacturing a product whose absence would have significant consequences. The law specifically excludes fuel minerals (like oil and natural gas), water, and common construction materials like sand, gravel, and ordinary clay.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is responsible for maintaining and updating the list. Its methodology weighs two main factors: how concentrated global production is in a small number of countries, and how dependent the U.S. is on imports. The latest assessment added a layer of sophistication by factoring in each producing country’s willingness and ability to keep supplying the U.S., using machine learning models trained on past trade restrictions, export dominance, and other geopolitical signals. Recycling rates also play a role. If a mineral can be recovered from old products at scale, its supply risk drops.
What’s on the 2025 List
The most recent update, published in 2025, expanded the list from 50 to 60 minerals. The additions reflect evolving priorities. Metallurgical coal and uranium were added by executive order, with Department of Energy support. Phosphate, a key ingredient in fertilizers, was added at the recommendation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Boron made the list after industry data showed the U.S. doesn’t manufacture enough specialized boron products for national security and technology applications.
The full roster includes metals you’ve likely heard of (copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, zinc, lead, silver, platinum, tin) alongside elements most people would need to look up (dysprosium, praseodymium, rubidium, thulium). Two minerals, arsenic and tellurium, were flagged by the updated methodology as no longer critically vulnerable to supply disruption, but they were kept on the list for another cycle of review.
Rare Earth Elements Are a Subset
You’ll often see “rare earth elements” and “critical minerals” used almost interchangeably in news coverage, but they’re not the same thing. Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metallic elements that happen to fall within the broader critical minerals category. The 2025 list includes many of them individually: neodymium, dysprosium, cerium, lanthanum, and others. They’re split into “light” and “heavy” rare earths, with the light ones generally more abundant in mineral deposits.
Rare earths get outsized attention because they’re essential for powerful permanent magnets used in electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and military equipment. But the critical minerals list is far wider, covering everything from graphite (used in battery anodes) to gallium (used in semiconductors) to manganese (used in steel production).
Why Supply Chains Are Vulnerable
The core problem is concentration. China was the top mining country for critical minerals in 2023, producing 5 percent or more of the global total for 18 different mineral commodities. South Africa, Australia, Russia, and the United States rounded out the top five. But mining is only half the picture. Processing is where concentration becomes extreme.
China’s dominance balloons between the mining and processing stages. Its share of global cobalt production, for example, jumps from 1 percent at the mining stage to 80 percent at the processing stage. For aluminum, the leap is from 21 percent to 59 percent. Copper goes from 8 percent to 44 percent. Titanium from 34 percent to 69 percent. This means that even when raw ore is mined in other countries, much of it flows to China for refining before it reaches manufacturers elsewhere.
A USGS economic modeling exercise found that supply disruptions to critical minerals could reduce U.S. GDP by as much as $4.5 billion, depending on the scenario. The minerals most vulnerable were those where U.S. imports are heavily concentrated in countries likely to restrict exports, and where production outside those countries is too small to absorb the shortfall.
What Critical Minerals Are Used For
Critical minerals underpin industries that most people interact with daily without thinking about raw materials. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite are the backbone of rechargeable batteries in electric vehicles, laptops, and phones. Gallium and germanium are essential for semiconductors and fiber optics. Platinum group metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium) serve roles in catalytic converters, hydrogen fuel cells, and chemical manufacturing. Tungsten and titanium are staples of aerospace and defense applications.
The clean energy transition is a major driver of growing demand. Solar panels, wind turbines, and grid-scale battery storage all require critical minerals in quantities that far exceed historical norms. So does the military: advanced jet engines, missile guidance systems, night-vision equipment, and encrypted communications all rely on specific critical minerals with no easy substitutes.
Reducing the Risk
Governments are pursuing several strategies to make supply chains less fragile. The U.S. and the European Union have both set targets for recycling critical minerals from end-of-life products, batteries, and electronic waste. In theory, recovering minerals from old devices reduces the need to mine new ones. In practice, recycling technologies for most critical minerals are still in early stages and remain too expensive for large-scale commercial use. Recycling also can’t fully replace virgin mining because the volume of minerals locked in existing products is far smaller than what growing industries need.
Finding substitute materials is another avenue, but progress is slow. The unique physical and chemical properties that make critical minerals valuable are precisely what makes them hard to replace. Researchers are exploring alternative battery chemistries that use more abundant elements, such as sodium and potassium instead of lithium, but these technologies are still maturing. Other efforts focus on diversifying mining and processing to new countries, building domestic refining capacity, and stockpiling strategic reserves.