China controls a metal that’s key for the Iran war, sending the U.S. on a global hunt for more

AsiaChina controls a metal that’s key for the Iran war, sending the U.S. on a global hunt for moreReplenishing the advanced weapons the U.S. is using in Iran will require large amounts of tungsten, a powerful metal whose production and refining is dominated by Beijing.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Add NBC News to GoogleInside the South Korean mines that will provide U.S. with key metal for Iran War04:06Get more newsLiveonShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 25, 2026, 3:53 AM EDTBy Janis Mackey Frayer, Stella Kim and Jennifer JettYEONGWOL COUNTY, South Korea — As the United States wages war on Iran, it is burning through stockpiles of advanced weapons and ammunition, including Tomahawk, Patriot and Precision Strike missiles. Replacing them will require a powerful metal, tungsten, whose production and refining is dominated by China — leading the U.S. to desperately search for it elsewhere.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Tungsten is used in fighter jets, bunker buster bombs, armor-piercing rounds and missile systems, making it indispensable for national defense. But the U.S. has had no active commercial tungsten mines since 2015, and the Trump administration has made it a mission to curb dependence on the Chinese supply.A mining district in China’s Inner Mongolia region in October.Fred Dufour / NBC NewsOne place the metal can be found is in the mountains of eastern South Korea, at a mine owned by a U.S. company that holds millions of tons of tungsten ore.“There are very few large-scale tungsten mines on the planet,” said Lewis Black, chief executive of Almonty Industries, which reopened the Sangdong mine in March more than 30 years after it shut down because of competition from China. Tungsten has long been a “war metal,” Black told NBC News last month during a visit to the mine. In recent decades, it has also become a “backbone metal” in the technology sector, used in semiconductors, b...