Critical Minerals: Reducing U.S. Import Reliance with Substitution and Recycling Technologies | U.S. GAO

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GAO-26-108687

Published: Jul 22, 2026. Publicly Released: Jul 22, 2026.

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Fast Facts

The U.S. relies on imports for many critical minerals that are essential to the battery and semiconductor industries. But their supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions.

We looked at how substitution and recycling technologies might reduce reliance on imports. Battery recycling—extracting minerals from batteries for reuse—could reduce imports in 2 to 3 years. Policy options that could help reach this goal include establishing infrastructure for collecting and recycling materials.

By contrast, substitution and recycling may not reduce short-term import reliance in the semiconductor industry.

An electronic chip with small rock-like items on it.

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Highlights

What GAO Found

Technologies like batteries and semiconductors are essential to the U.S. economy but rely on imports of lithium, gallium, and other critical minerals. GAO found that substitution and recycling technologies could help reduce U.S. reliance on these imports. But progress is likely to take many years in some cases.

Potential for technologies to reduce critical mineral import reliance

For batteries, substitution and recycling technologies offer near-term potential. For example, using lithium iron phosphate batteries for stationary grid energy storage might reduce imports of cobalt, manganese, and nickel in the next 2 to 3 years. But these batteries do not perform as well in other applications, like long-haul electric vehicles, due to their lower energy density. Lithium-free batteries are not yet commercially mature. Battery recycling technologies are mature and offer a pathway to reduce imports for copper, cobalt, lithium, and nickel in 2 to 3 years. These technologies aim to recover critical minerals at high rates through chemical leaching and smelting. Experts told GAO, however, that U.S. battery recyclers lack capacity. Additionally, available inputs for recycling (referred to as feedstock) are often landfilled or exported for processing.

For semiconductors, most substitution and recycling technologies are likely years away from maturity. Substitution is unlikely to have a near-term effect on import reliance of minerals, such as gallium and indium, because other materials do not perform as well as these critical minerals across the same conditions. Experts told GAO that industry will not adopt substitutes until they can perform at the same level as...