The Tungsten War Is Back — and America Is Losing Ground

More than 80 years ago, the Allies discovered that one of the best ways to weaken Nazi Germany wasn’t to destroy another factory.

It was to keep Germany from getting the resources it needed to run its war machine. And one of those critical inputs was tungsten.

Back then, it was called wolfram and Germany needed it for machine tools, hardened steels, and armor-piercing ammunition.

And because the Allied blockade had cut Germany off from many overseas sources, the tungsten mines of neutral Portugal and Spain became strategically important.

So a strange economic battle erupted…

Germany tried to buy as much tungsten as possible. But Britain and the United States tried to buy it first.

Prices exploded.

Governments negotiated quotas, pressured suppliers, threatened sanctions, and eventually pushed Portugal to stop exporting the metal altogether.

This wasn’t normal commodity trading. It was economic warfare.

And more than eight decades later, something disturbingly similar is happening again.

Only this time, China sits at the center of the world’s tungsten supply.

And American scrapyards have become part of the battlefield…

The Original Tungsten War

Germany’s industrial machine depended heavily on tungsten carbide because it could cut and shape hardened metals while resisting extraordinary amounts of heat and wear.

And the Allies understood that vulnerability very well…

According to U.S. historical records, Allied officials believed Germany was receiving roughly 60% of its estimated minimum industrial tungsten requirement from Portugal during parts of the war.

So Britain and the United States launched what amounted to a preclusive buying campaign…

They bought Portuguese tungsten not simply because they needed it but because they didn’t want Germany to have it.

And that competition sent prices soaring.

U.S. historical records show Portuguese tungsten prices had risen roughly 775% above prewar levels by 1943 as Germany and the Allies fought over limited supply.

But eventually, bidding wasn’t enough…

The Allies increased political pressure on Portugal, and by June 1944, Portugal imposed a complete embargo on tungsten exports to both sides.

The tungsten war had escalated from normal commerce to competitive buying, government intervention, export controls, and outright embargo.

Sound familiar? It should…

Fast-Forward 80 Years

Today, the United States isn’t fighting Germany over Portuguese tungsten. It’s confronting a different problem…

China dominates tungsten.

China remains the world’s largest producer, processor, and consumer of the metal, giving Beijing enormous influence over global supply.

And in February 2025, China imposed new export controls on selected tungsten products.

Prices reacted quickly and during 2025, prices for some important tungsten products more than doubled.

But something even more interesting started happening inside the United States…

Chinese buyers began hunting for old tungsten.

The Scrapyard War

A worn-out drill bit doesn’t look strategic. Neither does an old mining tool, cutting insert, or piece of industrial carbide…

But many of those objects contain tungsten. And tungsten can be recovered.

And that makes America’s piles of industrial scrap something surprisingly valuable…

A domestic tungsten resource that’s already above ground.

But recently, reports began emerging of Chinese traders aggressively approaching U.S. tungsten scrap suppliers.

And American recyclers said they were being outbid.

In some cases, Chinese buyers were reportedly willing to pay five times the normal price for tungsten-bearing scrap.

Think about that…

China already dominates the world’s primary tungsten industry.

It restricted exports of selected tungsten products.

Then buyers tied to the Chinese market began showing up in America willing to pay extraordinary prices for American tungsten scrap.

We can’t prove every aggressive scrap purchase is part of a coordinated strategy from Beijing. But we really don’t have to.

The strategic effect is what matters.

American tungsten leaves America…

Chinese-linked buyers gain access to additional supply…

American recyclers and manufacturers face increasingly aggressive competition…

And the West’s dependence on foreign tungsten gets harder to solve.

We’ve Seen This Movie Before

Now, let’s go back to Portugal in 1942…

Germany wanted tungsten because its industrial machine needed it. But the Allies didn’t want Germany to have it.

So both sides competed for the same limited resource.

Prices soared.

Trade flows became geopolitical.

Governments intervened.

Exports were restricted.

Now look at today…

China dominates tungsten production and processing.

China has restricted exports of selected tungsten products.

Western governments are funding alternative mines and supply chains.

Chinese buyers have been aggressively bidding for American tungsten scrap.

Prices have surged.

And governments are intervening again.

History doesn’t repeat perfectly. But it sure does rhyme awfully loudly.

America Is Joining the Fight

And finally, Washington has started treating tungsten less like an ordinary commodity and more like a strategic asset…

The Pentagon has identified it as an important defense material and supported projects designed to establish new North American supplies.

Western governments are doing the same thing elsewhere.

Projects in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other allied jurisdictions are suddenly getting attention they couldn’t attract when cheap Chinese material dominated the market.

And that’s the key change…

For decades, the market rewarded whoever could produce tungsten most cheaply.

Now governments are increasingly asking a different question…

Where does it come from?

Because once national security enters the equation, price isn’t the only consideration anymore.

Reliability matters. Jurisdiction matters. Domestic processing matters. Recycling matters.

And control of supply matters.

A Strategic Resource War

That’s the biggest lesson from World War II…

The Allies weren’t obsessed with tungsten because they thought its price would rise.

They cared because tungsten sat upstream from weapons factories, machine tools, and industrial production.

Control the resource and you influence everything downstream.

That remains true today.

Tungsten helps make cutting tools, drilling equipment, aerospace components, turbine parts, semiconductor equipment, mining machinery, missiles, ammunition, and countless other industrial products possible.

And because the global tungsten market is relatively small, it doesn’t take enormous changes in supply or demand to create enormous disruptions.

Chinese export restrictions tightened the market and drove prices higher, yet Western demand remained strong.

Chinese buyers began competing aggressively for American scrap and prices climbed further.

Now governments have started scrambling for alternative supply.

It looks remarkably similar to what happened the last time the world’s great powers realized tungsten was too important to leave entirely to the free market.

Back then, they called it wolfram. Today we call it tungsten. But the lesson hasn’t changed…

When countries start fighting over who gets the metal instead of simply asking what it costs, you’re no longer watching an ordinary commodity market.

You’re watching a strategic resource war.

The Company Positioned for the Tungsten Crisis

And that’s where this story becomes especially interesting for investors…

When governments scramble to secure supply, fund new mines, support domestic processing, and keep strategic materials closer to home, money tends to follow.

But it doesn’t flow evenly.

Some companies are merely exposed to higher tungsten prices…

But others sit directly in the path of the Western world’s effort to rebuild a secure tungsten supply chain.

And our research team has been digging into that second group.

We’ve put together a new report that goes much deeper into the tungsten crisis, China’s dominance of the market, America’s supply vulnerability, the scramble for alternative sources, and the forces we believe could keep tungsten strategically important for years.

But more importantly, the report identifies the one little-known company our research suggests is positioned to benefit most from this shift.

It’s not a giant diversified miner where tungsten barely moves the needle.

It’s a much smaller company tied directly to the effort to establish secure Western supply.

And if this modern tungsten war keeps escalating, we think that position could become extremely valuable.

Click here to get the full tungsten report and discover the company we’re watching most closely.