Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ECONOMIC NEWS—Trump delegates Defense Production Act authority to institute export restrictions on recoverable critical minerals, materials, (Jul 31, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

The term “recoverable critical minerals and materials” includes “goods that have fully completed the manufacturing process; swarf; and other waste and scrap containing critical minerals and materials.”

On July 30, President Trump issued a memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce finding that the United States’ “inadequate supply” of recoverable critical minerals and materials (CMMs), industrial resources necessary to promote the national defense, “poses an increasing risk to our national defense and security.” Delegating authority under the Section 101 of the Defense Production Act to institute export restrictions on recoverable CMMs, the memo notes that the U.S. “relies heavily on imports of certain CMMs from foreign sources, and this reliance threatens serious, sustained supply chain disruptions.”

Supply chains and export restrictions. In a Fact Sheet issued alongside the memo, the White House observed that the memo found that CMMs are “critical industrial resources necessary to promoting the national defense, particularly with regard to military production, industrial applications, and national security.” The memo “grants the Secretary of Commerce the authority to institute export restrictions on CMMs.”

National defense. Elaborating its national defense rationale for the presidential determination, the White House observed that CMMs are “pervasive in defense supply chains and are key inputs in advanced defense systems that support technological superiority, operational readiness, and an array of high-performance military equipment.”

Civilian market implications. The memo to the Secretary observes that “recoverable CMMs are scarce and critical materials essential to the national defense,” and “the requirements of the national defense for recoverable CMMs cannot otherwise be met without creating a significant dislocation of the normal distribution of such material in the civilian market to such a degree as to create appreciable hardship.”

Section 101.Section 101 of the Defense Production Act, in turn, specifies that the powers granted to the President to prioritize and allocate the performance of contracts or orders he deems necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense “shall not be used to control the general distribution of any material in the civilian market unless the President finds (1) that such material is a scarce and critical material essential to the national defense, and (2) that the requirements of the national defense for such material cannot otherwise be met without creating a significant dislocation of the normal distribution of such material in the civilian market to such a degree as to create appreciable hardship.”

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