(Jan 15) : President Donald Trump is holding off on new tariffs targeting imports of critical minerals, following a months-long review to determine whether foreign shipments threatened US national security. Industry watchers for months have awaited the decision from the investigation, launched last April under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which concluded that imports of processed critical minerals and their derivative products imperiled US national security, citing their importance to a wide swath of defense industries. Trump has been under pressure to respond after China, the world’s largest processor of many critical minerals, constrained access to rare earths crucial to advanced technologies during a trade spat last year. More broadly, the Section 232 authority behind the minerals probe is seen as a way the administration could rebuild its tariff regime if the Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s global levies. The proclamation notes uranium as one of the critical minerals “the energy sector relies on.”A major hurdle the administration will need to address, if tariffs are eventually imposed, is the lack of domestic production the US has for most of these raw materials.

Source: The Edge Markets January 14, 2026 22:28 UTC