Who produces the U.S. critical minerals
The U.S. Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, published by USGS on November 7, 2025, corresponds to 42 chapters of the Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026; individual rare-earth elements and platinum-group metals on the list are covered by group chapters. Of the 35 listed minerals that have a USGS world production table with comparable figures, China was the largest producer of 19. The other leaders were South Africa (3), DR Congo (2), Chile (2), Australia (2), the United States (1), Peru (1), Mexico (1), Indonesia (1), India (1), Canada (1), and Brazil (1).
The list is a U.S. government designation. This note does not comment on it; it shows, for each listed mineral, who produced it in 2025 and how much of U.S. consumption came from net imports.
| Critical mineral | Top producer 2025 | Its world share | U.S. net import reliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gallium | China | 99% | 100% |
| Niobium | Brazil | 93% | 100% |
| Silicon | China | 87% | under 50% |
| Magnesium metal | China | 86% | over 75% |
| Bismuth | China | 86% | 92% |
| Tungsten | China | 79% | over 50% |
| Natural graphite | China | 78% | 100% |
| Tellurium | China | 78% | over 25% |
| Cobalt | DR Congo | 73% | 79% |
| Vanadium | China | 72% | 41% |
| Platinum-group metals | South Africa | 71% | 57% |
| Titanium metal and titanium dioxide | China | 70% | 100% |
| Rare earths | China | 69% | 67% |
| Indium | China | 69% | 100% |
| Nickel | Indonesia | 67% | 41% |
| Aluminum | China | 61% | 60% |
| Fluorspar | China | 59% | 100% |
| Beryllium | United States | 53% | net exporter |
| Tantalum | DR Congo | 52% | 100% |
| Arsenic | Peru | 49% | 100% |
| Chromium | South Africa | 45% | 79% |
| Phosphate rock | China | 44% | 16% |
| Lead | China | 42% | 33% |
| Manganese | South Africa | 38% | 100% |
| Rhenium | Chile | 37% | 75% |
| Antimony | China | 36% | 91% |
| Barite | India | 34% | over 75% |
| Titanium mineral concentrates | China | 34% | 88% |
| Zirconium and hafnium | Australia | 32% | –% |
| Lithium | Australia | 32% | over 50% |
| Zinc | China | 32% | net exporter |
| Potash | Canada | 31% | 92% |
| Tin | China | 24% | 77% |
| Silver | Mexico | 24% | 77% |
| Copper | Chile | 23% | 57% |
What the table shows
The list is not only made of rare or exotic elements. It includes aluminum, copper, zinc, phosphate rock and potash, which are mined or processed in large volumes in many countries. Their top-producer shares are lower, between 23% and 61%, and each table lists at least 10 producing countries.
At the other end are minerals where one producer accounts for most of the world. Gallium, niobium, bismuth, silicon and magnesium metal all have a single country above 85% of world output in the USGS tables. For niobium that country is Brazil; for the others it is China.
Are critical minerals more concentrated?
On average, yes. The median top-producer share across the 35 critical minerals in the table is 53%, against 35% for the 37 other minerals with a comparable world total. 19 of the critical minerals have one country above 50% of world output, compared with 9 of the others. The overlap is wide, though: several non-critical minerals, such as mercury, lime, and wollastonite, are more concentrated than most critical ones.
Where the United States ranks
The United States has a published 2025 production figure in 15 of the critical-mineral tables above. It ranks first in beryllium, and in the top three in 3 tables in all. In many other critical-mineral tables its figure is withheld or zero, which the mineral pages show as published.
Reserves
Among the critical minerals with a reserve share, the largest reserves are most often in Australia (4 minerals), followed by Chile (2), China (2), and DR Congo (1). The reserve leader differs from the production leader in 7 of them.
Minerals without a world table
6 commodities on the list have no USGS world production table by country: Cesium, germanium, Heavy rare earths, Rubidium, Scandium, and yttrium. USGS reports either that no reliable country data exist, or that the element is covered by another chapter, as yttrium and the heavy rare earths are by the rare-earth tables. Where the site has U.S. statistics for them, their pages show the five-year series and import sources instead.
U.S. reliance alongside world supply
The last column shows how much of U.S. consumption came from net imports in 2025. Read together with the top-producer share, it separates two different situations. A mineral can be highly concentrated worldwide while the United States produces its own supply, as with beryllium, where the United States itself is the largest producer. Or world supply can be spread out while the United States still imports nearly all it uses, as with potash, where net imports covered 92% of consumption.
Across the whole list, 10 critical minerals had 100% net import reliance in 2025: arsenic, fluorspar, gallium, natural graphite, indium, manganese, niobium, tantalum, titanium metal and titanium dioxide, and yttrium. For 3 the United States was a net exporter: beryllium, boron, and zinc. The remainder sit in between, many of them as bands rather than exact percentages because U.S. production figures are withheld.
Boron and the forms problem
Boron is on the critical list but is left out of the table above. USGS lists boron producers in different forms, from crude ore to refined borates, and gives no world total, so neither shares nor a meaningful ranking can be calculated. The boron page shows each country’s figure with its form.
Sources
U.S. Geological Survey, 2026, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: doi.org/10.3133/mcs2026. Shares, ranks and changes are worked out from the USGS tables as described on Reading the figures. Look up any mineral in the producer explorer.