U.S. Mineral Import Reliance, 1954–2014: A 60-Year Look

Minerals the United States imported entirely (lists) and more than half of (maps), 1954, 1984 and 2014. USGS.

The U.S. economy and national security depend on a reliable supply of nonfuel minerals, and over 60 years more of them have come from abroad. The USGS National Minerals Information Center (NMIC), which tracks more than 90 commodities from more than 180 countries, finds three trends from 1954 to 2014: more minerals are import reliant, reliance on each has grown, and sources have shifted.

Measuring reliance

Net import reliance (NIR) is imports minus exports, adjusted for changes in stocks, as a percentage of domestic consumption. A mineral the U.S. doesn't produce at all is 100% import reliant. NMIC publishes these figures each year in the Mineral Commodity Summaries.

Sixty years of change

Number of minerals by level of U.S. import reliance, 1954, 1984 and 2014. USGS.

Comparisons are approximate: how minerals are classified has changed over the years.

The 1950s brought Federal exploration programs driven by strategic-mineral worries, and after the Korean War, growing demand, price rises and the phasing out of domestic price supports.

Where minerals come from

• 1954: several African countries led, followed by the United Kingdom and South America.
• 1984: more sources, including China and the Soviet Union.
• 2014: China supplied 24 of the 47 minerals the U.S. imported more than half of; Canada 16; Mexico, Russia and South Africa 8 each. Trade with Canada and Mexico had deepened, culminating in NAFTA (signed 1992).

Examples

• Potash (fertilizer): NIR rose from 3% (1954) to 74% (1984) to 84% (2014) — but risk is very low. Canada supplies over 85% of U.S. use, and the U.S. has about 200 million metric tons of reserves and 7 billion of resources against use of 5 to 6 million a year.
• Germanium (fiber optics, infrared optics, electronics, solar): 95% imported in 2014, mostly from China, though the U.S. once produced it.
• Vanadium (specialty steel): a U.S. export in 1954, now nearly 100% imported, mainly from Russia, the Czech Republic and South Africa.
• Recycling helps: tungsten fell from 71% (1984) to 43% (2014) import reliance as recycling met about 53% of use; cobalt fell from 95% to 76%, with recycling 27% of use; about one-third of chromium and tin use came from recycling. But recycling can't replace mining while demand keeps growing.

Reliance is not the same as risk

Critical minerals worries surged in 2010, when China briefly limited rare-earth exports (a policy later changed after World Trade Organization action). With 2.5 to 3 billion more people possibly joining the global middle class by 2030, demand will likely grow. Yet import reliance is only one factor: risk also depends on how concentrated supply is, who the suppliers are, alternatives and substitutes, how the mineral is used, recycling, and stockpiles.

These concerns aren't new. Commodore Perry's 1852–54 Far East expedition was told to assess coal for the Navy; the Mining Law of 1872 encouraged domestic mining; in 1886 a Senate committee worried about imported iron ore and manganese; and in 1911, weighing a switch of the British fleet from coal to oil, Winston Churchill observed that "security of supply lies in diversity of supply." Since World War II, the U.S. has kept a National Defense Stockpile.

Sources

Based on Comparison of U.S. Net Import Reliance for Nonfuel Mineral Commodities—A 60-Year Retrospective (1954–1984–2014), USGS Fact Sheet 2015–3082, National Minerals Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey (DOI), citing the U.S. Bureau of Mines, Morgan (1984), Haglund (1983), Yergin (2011) and others; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The chart and maps come from the fact sheet's PDF.