The Galling Gallium Chokehold: Why the US Can't Build Precision Missiles or Fully-Functional F-35s
Gallium: Why the US Cannot Produce Precision Missiles and Fully-Functional F-35s
The US has no domestic gallium production and relies 100% on imports, with China controlling up to 98% of global output. This dependency has become a strategic weapon: China's export ban on gallium to US military end-users remains in force, even as civilian supplies were temporarily resumed. As a result, F-35s from Lot 17 are being delivered with counterweights instead of advanced GaN radars, and the Pentagon has no stockpile to fall back on. Meanwhile, China is leveraging its material advantage to lead in 6G technology, potentially shaping global standards.
The chokehold didn't release; it was repositioned.
- jandrewrogers
One of the unique properties of gallium is that it does not form meaningful concentrated ores. The concentration of gallium in your backyard is roughly the same concentration as gallium literally everywhere.
Consequently, every country has gallium. It is associated with aluminum production primarily because the waste stream coincidentally had some of the chemical extraction steps already applied, which saves money since you don’t have to apply them separately to the dirt in your backyard.
China has a lot of gallium because they refine a lot of aluminum (cheap energy), and gallium is a secondary product. The US has a long history of refining aluminum but produce relatively little now. Nonetheless, the ability to refine gallium is not conditional on that. Anyone everywhere can refine gallium if they need it; marginal differences in cost don’t matter if it is strategically important and the amount of gallium required is quite small.
- Lazare
Headline discusses missiles (which are topical); the article is mostly about radars in F-35s, and admits halfway through it's because a procurement schedule slipped.
This is just clickbait; there's no content here.
- tkel
AI-written article