Last updated on July 23, 2026
For years, tungsten cost the same in China and everywhere else. This period, that stopped being true.
China requires a license to export tungsten, and it has cut the list of firms allowed to sell abroad. The result, spelled out this cycle by industry price reporters: two separate markets. Chinese domestic prices have actually softened, while the price Western buyers pay outside China stays far higher and moves on its own. The same split has opened in antimony, in germanium, and even in rare-earth magnet metal.
It sounds technical. It isn’t. That gap quietly rewrites the whole case for building a mineral supply chain outside China — because a Western refinery no longer has to beat a cheap Chinese price, only the higher outside one. And this period the money showed up to match: the U.S. Department of War launched a program to move up to $100 billion into the sector through private funds.
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