FORTRESS stockpile plan runs short of tungsten, rare earths

By Nathan Brooks

The Defense Logistics Agency awarded Elmet Technologies a five-year tungsten stockpile contract worth up to $2 billion on Sept. 11, but guaranteed only $150 million. Deliveries wait for significant additional supply from new mining and processing investments. The stockpile has funding before it has material.

What does FORTRESS America cover?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced FORTRESS America in his Sept. 30 “State of the Force” address. On Oct. 6, Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey issued a directive establishing a program office under interim director Richard “Matt” O’Malley.

The program has five pillars:

• Space and spectrum resilience
• Installation hardening and cyber resilience
• Energy independence
• Supply chain and defense industrial base resilience
• A strategic defense reserve to build inventories, emergency capacity and stockpile depth for long contingencies

FORTRESS will stockpile minerals, fuel and munitions in the United States for a major war. The program also asks major bases to plan for 90 days without the civilian grid and aims to keep U.S. forces fighting if cyberattacks or sabotage disable domestic factories and power grids.

Cold War stockpiles sat overseas, near expected battlefields, while FORTRESS keeps reserves at home. Hudson Institute senior fellow Bryan Clark told Fortune that the domestic focus and scale set the program apart.

Clark also warned: “The Pentagon is unlikely to meet the goals in the near term.” An unnamed defense expert judged the ambition comparable with what the Defense Department pursued during the Cold War.

The Sept. 30 memo names no minerals, companies or purchase volumes. Hegseth listed rare earths, specialty metals, semiconductors and propellants as supply chains the United States should bring back.

How large is the program?

The Pentagon has published no total cost. Air & Space Forces Magazine estimated that the wider program could reach scores of billions of dollars, possibly hundreds of billions, according to Fortune.

On Oct. 20, a senior defense official said the department was still assessing costs. Dale Marks, the assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment, said the Pentagon was exploring public-private partnerships to help finance the effort.

The National Defense Stockpile, run by the Defense Logistics Agency, received $2 billion for its transaction fund in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, on top of roughly $958 million already held. In 2025, the Pentagon planned to buy up to $1 billion of stockpile materials. Its requests for information covered scandium, tungsten, graphite, samarium, dysprosium and terbium.

Why tungsten remains the bottleneck

Elmet Technologies, a unit of Nasdaq-listed Elmet Group, received the Sept. 11 contract for tungsten concentrates and sodium tungstate. The Pentagon also agreed to buy $450 million of Elmet preferred stock.

Elmet and two partners plan to put $150 million to $175 million into restarting the Springer tungsten mine and mill in Imlay, Nevada. Fortune reported that further supply is due from Elmet investments in Australia and Spain.

The United States has not mined tungsten commercially since 2015 and relied on imports for more than half its 2025 consumption, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The country also imported about $60 billion in critical minerals overall, including nickel, lithium, cobalt and graphite, according to the Peterson Institute.

China’s tungsten export controls have pushed up prices for tungsten-carbide micro drill bits. MLQ reported on Nov. 6 that those bits are used to make AI circuit boards.

Can magnet supply meet the 2027 deadline?

Arthur D. Little data cited by Reuters put U.S. demand for neodymium-iron-boron, or NdFeB, magnets at about 48,000 metric tons in 2025. Domestic sources supplied about 300 tons.

U.S. capacity is expected to reach about 5,000 tons by the end of 2026, around one-tenth of demand. The demand figure covers the whole economy, including magnets inside imported goods, so it overstates what the military needs directly.

China dominates every stage of magnet production, and the International Energy Agency attributes about 91% of refined magnet rare earths and 94% of sintered permanent magnets to China. Those magnets serve motors and guidance systems. Rare-earth shortages forced Ford to idle its Chicago Explorer plant for one week in May 2025.

From Jan. 1, 2027, defense contractors at every tier must stop buying specified materials. It covers NdFeB and samarium-cobalt magnets, tungsten metal powder and heavy alloy, and tantalum mined, refined or produced in China, Russia, Iran or North Korea.

Washington has repeatedly granted waivers because domestic supply falls short. Under a July executive order, waivers after Jan. 1 generally require an approved plan to remove the noncompliant material.

MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, expected to help fill the gap, are still ramping their first magnet lines. China has placed both companies on its export-control list. Minerals analyst Chris Berry told Reuters that many more years of infrastructure will be needed before the United States can compete.

Where China retains leverage

China has organized its overseas mine deals through a state-backed system of equity stakes, policy-bank loans and offtake contracts, MLQ reported on Nov. 5. On Nov. 6, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer pressed Vice Premier He Lifeng to carry out Beijing’s rare-earth commitments in full, according to Fortune.

The near-term test is narrow: whether new mines and processing investments deliver tungsten, whether domestic magnet lines reach the roughly 5,000 tons expected by the end of 2026, and whether Chinese export controls remain tight. Without those advances, FORTRESS is likely to remain dependent on waivers and exposed to mineral prices and Chinese processing leverage.