“No more ‘We tried nothing and we’re out of options,’ ” says Peter Navarro, a White House advisor.
He was speaking to the press about a July 20, 2026 executive order on “Securing America’s Defense Supply Chains and Ensuring Domestic Acquisition Of Critical Materials.” The purpose of the order is to make it harder for military contractors and others to obtain waivers permitting them to obtain “covered materials” like critical minerals and rare earths from Chinese sources.
Fewer waivers
The order says that the failure of a contractor or subcontractor “to qualify a domestic source of covered material shall not constitute non-availability for purposes of a waiver under 10 U.S.C. 4872(c)(1), except in such cases in which a prime contractor or subcontractor demonstrates active, adequately funded, and ongoing efforts to qualify a domestic source of the covered material at issue.”
If the efforts are diligent and demonstrable, to get a waiver the contractor or subcontractor must also submit “a formal mitigation plan” explaining how it will “remove the non-compliant covered material from its supply chains.”
Reuters (July 20, 2026):
The Pentagon has been pushing defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing to rapidly expand weapons production while trying to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities buried deep inside the military supply chain.
Many critical minerals and processed materials used in missiles, aircraft and other advanced systems still rely on Chinese suppliers, leaving companies caught between demands to reduce dependence on Beijing and the urgent need to keep weapons flowing to U.S. forces and allies.
China has gradually restricted access to critical minerals and used supply chains as leverage.
The Trump administration is seeking to pull back the curtain on a defense supply chain that can stretch through dozens of suppliers before reaching the company that builds the final weapon.
So the pressure is on for military contractors to rebuild their supply chains in such a way so as to avoid relying on an enemy state for the ingredients of military hardware that must be used to fight that enemy state or any of its client states, like Iran.
The pressure won’t suffice unless alternative sources, including domestic mines and processing plants and non-China countries, provide enough critical minerals to enable Chinese suppliers to be dropped. But maybe the stronger demand for alternative sources thus encouraged will make it more profitable and easier to expand those alternative sources.
Meanwhile, the new requirements will probably slow production and increase costs.
Also see:
The White House: “Securing America’s Defense Supply Chains and Ensuring Domestic Acquisition Of Critical Materials”
The New York Times: “Not Just ‘Rare Earths’: U.S. Gets Many Critical Minerals From China”
