The US military-industrial complex is warning that Project Vault, a plan to stockpile critical minerals, could drive prices even higher, the Financial Times reports.
Project Vault is a $12 billion brainchild of the US Export-Import Bank aimed at building a strategic domestic reserve of scarce rare earth metals that civilian industries could tap during shortages.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a US trade group representing military and aerospace firms including Palantir and BAE Systems, warns that Project Vault could end up “competing” for critical minerals “amid an already constrained global supply."
The US is facing a rare earth shortage as China tightens export controls amid a simmering Sino-American trade spat. In 2025, 71% of US rare-earth imports critical to defense and energy came from China. That leaves the US military and civilian industries competing for the same critical minerals.
The pressure is set to grow. From January 1, US defense contractors will be barred from sourcing rare earths, permanent magnets, and critical minerals from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea for military use.
In March, US defense industry sources told S&P Global that shortages of tungsten, antimony, gallium, and germanium already represent a strategic vulnerability for the US military in the event of a prolonged war with Iran.
🔴If the US is running out of tungsten and antimony and it doesn't have access to germanium and gallium supplies, it cannot build new weapons,🔴 warned Peter Clausi, director of the Critical Minerals Institute, a Toronto-based think tank.
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