Public focus on US-China competition has centered on advanced technologies, semiconductors, and critical minerals. But major metals remain an essential and underappreciated foundation of economic and military power.
Steel is essential for warships, submarines, armored vehicles, infrastructure, and specialty alloys. Aluminum is critical for aerospace and advanced defense systems, including high-performance aircraft. Copper is essential for ammunition, power transmission, telecommunications, electronics, and the electrical grid.
Yet, the United States’ metals production capacity has sharply eroded over the past several decades and China refines more copper, manufactures more steel, and smelts more aluminum than any other country.
SAFE’s Center for Strategic Industrial Materials report, Strategic Surpluses: China’s Economic Warfare on Major Metals, warns that the Chinese Communist Party’s state-backed dominance of steel, aluminum, and copper production has distorted global markets, weakened U.S. industrial capacity, and created a growing national security vulnerability.
The report argues that tariffs are an important tool, but not a complete strategy. SAFE calls for a sustained, bipartisan policy agenda to rebuild a competitive and secure metals supply chain.
Recommendations include:
- Allocate federal funds to modernize steel, aluminum, and copper facilities.
- Ensure the electric grid is ready to support large new industrial loads.
- Accelerate recycling and treat high-quality metal scrap as a strategic asset.
- Invest in manufacturing innovation, advanced metallurgy, and energy efficiency.
- Create a Federal Consortium for Advanced Metals to coordinate federal policy.
- Improve U.S. Commerce Department supply chain visibility for steel, aluminum, copper, and scrap flows.
- Strengthen U.S. trade policy, including rules of origin, tariff enforcement, and tools to prevent dumped or subsidized metals from entering through finished products.
- Coordinate with trusted allies to respond to China’s non-market practices.
- Fill workforce gaps through apprenticeships, technical training, and retention incentives.
