Ensuring National Security and Economic Resilience Through Section 232 Actions on Processed Critical Minerals and Derivative Products

Signed 15 April 2025 and published 18 April 2025, the order directs the Secretary of Commerce to initiate an investigation under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 into the effects on national security of imports of processed critical minerals and their derivative products, assessing the factors in 19 U.S.C. 1862(d) along with import volumes and the concentration of foreign supply. "Critical minerals" is defined by reference to the USGS list published under section 7002(c) of the Energy Act of 2020, plus uranium; "rare earth elements" by reference to the seventeen elements identified in the Department of Energy's April 2020 Critical Materials Rare Earths Supply Chain publication. "Processed critical minerals" covers the stages after ore extraction up through conversion into a metal, metal powder or master alloy, and "derivative products" the manufactured goods incorporating them. The order initiates an investigation; it does not itself impose a tariff or a quota.

The US opening its trade-remedy channel on the same chokepoint China regulates through export licensing — the two governments acting on processed minerals from opposite ends of the same supply chain. Coded as a trade action because it starts a statutory section 232 process, but note carefully that the operative effect at this date is an investigation and a reporting timetable, not a restriction: any duty would come from a later presidential decision on the Secretary's report.