By Jacob Bogage
WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order giving federal officials the power to block exports of old batteries and other electronic waste filled with critical minerals, part of a broader push to boost domestic recycling and counter China’s grip on materials vital to national security, according to two White House officials familiar with the matter.
The presidential determination allows the Commerce Department to issue rules that would prevent so-called “e-waste” from being sent overseas, a practice that is common.
The administration hopes to funnel those materials — especially tungsten and shredded battery parts known as black mass — to domestic recyclers, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The U.S. exports nearly 33,000 metric tons per month of e-waste, much of it filled with lithium and other critical minerals that can be recycled, according to data from the environmental group Basel Action Network.
Those e-waste exports have long irked the U.S. recycling industry, which has said that keeping the material in the country for recycling could help Washington better meet its minerals production goals and lessen the need for new mines, which are often unpopular in some communities.
The Trump administration has fielded complaints from recyclers, the people said, that domestic firms cannot compete with global competitors who pay above-market rates for the scrap.
Several North American recyclers, for example, have faced economic challenges in the past 18 months, including Li-Cycle and Ascend Elements, both of which filed for bankruptcy.
Other projects are moving forward. In Oklahoma, Blue Whale Materials and two other firms are building battery recycling operations.
China controls the vast majority of critical minerals output, and the U.S. relies on Beijing for more than a dozen of the most vital substances, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The U.S. holds substantial amounts of critical minerals in finished goods, including lithium-ion batteries and magnets, but also relies heavily on minerals imports.
RECYCLING CAN BOOST US MINERALS ACCESS
China has wielded its dominance of the minerals market as economic leverage, restricting exports of rare earths and other minerals at moments of trade tension with Washington.
Since new mines and processing facilities can take years to build, the Trump administration is essentially now turning to a faster fix: capturing minerals already inside the U.S. before they’re exported and lost to foreign buyers.
Roughly 84% of Americans would be more likely to recycle their aging electronics if they knew it would help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign mineral supplies, according to a study released this month by Ohio-based recycler Cirba Solutions.
The defense industry and other manufacturers are now just months away from a January 1, 2027, deadline under federal regulations to stop purchasing minerals from China.
The stakes are especially acute for tungsten. The U.S. has not commercially mined tungsten since 2015, and world supply remains dominated by Chinese production and exports, leaving scrap as one of the only domestic sources of the metal, which is used in munitions and other weapons.
Amermin, a privately held recycler, said in a March letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that tungsten exports pose “an unacceptable risk to American industrial and military readiness.”
The order extends a string of actions this year aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains.
In January, Trump issued a proclamation following a trade investigation in which the Commerce Department found that imports of processed critical minerals and their derivative products threaten U.S. national security.
On July 20, he signed a separate executive order making it more difficult for defense contractors to secure waivers that would let them purchase critical minerals from prohibited foreign suppliers.
(Reporting by Jacob Bogage in Washington, Ernest Scheyder and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Deepa Babington)
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