The Periodic Table of Who's Actually Building

The United States imports more than half of its supply for 43 of the 50 minerals on the U.S. Geological Survey (United States Geological Survey (USGS)) critical minerals list. For 14 of those, import reliance is 100%. The structural foundation of American manufacturing, defense, and energy infrastructure rests on supply chains that run through geopolitical adversaries.

Import dependence defines U.S. critical mineral exposure: the USGS 2022 mineral commodity summaries flagged net import reliance above 50% for 47 mineral commodities, including 12 at 100%. This interactive maps every critical mineral against the companies actually building domestic processing capacity. Each square identifies who is building, what the mineral is used for, and how dependent the U.S. currently is on imports. The category filters let you slice by end-use (defense, energy, semiconductors, infrastructure, or health) to see where concentration risk clusters.

The data synthesizes USGS mineral commodity summaries, company disclosures, Department of Energy (DOE) critical materials assessments, and trade databases. Import percentages reflect net import reliance as a share of apparent consumption. Company assignments represent the most advanced domestic processing effort identified as of March 2026; not all are at commercial scale.

Start with the squares marked "vacant." These are minerals with no identified domestic processor at any stage. Then look for the sole-producer warnings, the minerals where a single company represents the entire U.S. processing base. The ratio bar at the top tells the headline number, but the pattern of vacancies tells the real story.