A March 20 executive order signed by President Donald Trump is a badly needed wake-up call. It brings home the reality of a long ignored, self-created resource collapse issue. The order invokes his wartime powers to dramatically increase the production of critical rare earth minerals.

Decades ago we allowed environmental activists to shut down mining of our domestic rare earth resources, leaving us fully dependent upon outsourcing. The danger of this has put us at the whim of other nations that then choose to sever the supply chain — as China has done. This development leaves us to explore various options.

Not too long ago, one such option may have been the dream of science fiction writers. It no longer is as we stand on the verge of accomplishing it — the mining of asteroids. But while it has emerged out from the world of fantasy and into one of feasibility, it is still also years away from reality.

A more realistic option is Trump’s effort to sign a rare earth minerals deal with a country blessed with an abundant supply of it that can benefit from both U.S. production and protection — Ukraine. Such an arrangement would give the U.S. a presence there with half the profits generated to be shared with Kyiv.

Interestingly, there is an abundance in both asteroids and Ukraine of a metal more important to our military than gold, although few Americans would even recognize its name.

It is a metal with an interesting history. Used in pottery as early as 1600 B.C. and as a cosmetic in ancient Egypt, it was first recognized to exist in compounds during the early 17th century. Its value has recently skyrocketed primarily due to its military applications. Known as “antimony,” it is critical in meeting our current defense needs as well as any future technological advances due to its unique characteristics.

Trump’s executive order has demonstrated what we failed to learn from World War II.

Antimony was critical to us during that conflict as a fire retardant and metal strengthener. Deposits of it in Idaho, Montana and Nevada (later in Alaska after becoming our 49th state) enabled us to meet 90% of our needs. Those needs have since extended to numerous industrial sectors (such as energy) with military applications including production of night-vision goggles, bullets, artillery shells, anti-tank missiles, laser-lighting and even nuclear weapons. This wide range of product production caused the U.S. Department of the Interior to designate antimony as a “critical” metal.

The U.S. was a major antimony producer until the 1980s. While our largest deposits remain in the four aforementioned states, they are relatively small, representing only 3% of global reserves. As we often tend to do — making knee-jerk decisions without fully considering the consequences — we surrendered the ability to maintain our own supply of antimony in favor of importing it, mainly out of environmental concerns. We also found we were unable to compete with the lower pricing of foreign sources after U.S. federal regulations impacted on domestic production.

The Environmental Protection Agency eventually shut down antimony mining in the U.S. for fear of arsenic and other contaminant runoff damaging river ecosystems. In the 1990s, Idaho became the last of the four states to shut down its operations.

Unfortunately, the largest antimony deposits today are located in countries unfriendly to us, such as China and Russia. It is estimated China is responsible for half the world’s production. And, as global demand for the metal has recently increased, Chinese exports have tightened up due to the favorable national security impact it provides the importer. Last September, China banned antimony exports to the U.S. while decreasing its own production. This caused the metal’s pricing to increase by 200% in 2024. It is estimated its pricing will do the same this year.

China has spent decades developing its antimony mining industry as well as the necessary processing and refining infrastructure to support it. The industry remains woefully underdeveloped in other antimony-rich nations. As a result, even antimony that is mined in other countries is primarily exported to China for refining.

Meanwhile, Russia holds 17.5% of the global reserves. While other countries (Bolivia, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Turkey and Australia) have 35.5% of those reserves, they only produce a combined 6.4% of the world’s supply. Thus, the world’s second largest producer — at 25% — behind China is Tajikistan, despite its limited reserves. While the U.S. has been cultivating a diplomatic relationship with Tajikistan over the last few decades, possibly leading to an antimony deal, the country enjoys a closer relationship with Russia. The fact too that 78% of its antimony exports go to China for refinement could easily dissuade it from doing business with the U.S.

We have gone from a nation during World War II that was self-sufficient concerning antimony demand to a situation today in which we are meeting zero percent of it. We are now looking for ways of securing supplies of our military’s “gold” metal. The Pentagon has made this a top priority, recently investing in accelerating antimony mining in Idaho while looking at opportunities in Alaska and Canada as well.

With the potential of conflict with China over Taiwan more of a reality than ever before, the need for our access to rare earth minerals such as antimony has never been greater. Trump’s recent executive order recognizing this is an important first step; a deal with Ukraine is an important second one.

James Zumwalt is a retired Marine infantry officer (lieutenant colonel) who served in the Vietnam War, Panama and Operation Desert Storm. He is the author of three books and hundreds of opinion pieces in online and print publications.