China’s Battery Grip Threatens U.S. Defense Tech

A new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) detailed that China controls more than 80% of the materials needed to make batteries used in the defense industry, serving as a significant threat to the United States.

“While most nations respect a basic set of rules that promotes fair competition, Beijing leverages a wide range of non-market practices to dominate supply chains, create resource dependencies, undermine foreign rivals, concentrate economic power, and destabilize emerging economies,” the report says.

“As the use of drones, robots, and other unmanned weapons platforms increases in importance, better batteries will mean a better fighting force,” the report adds. “The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates the ways in which drone warfare can transform a battlefield, with an estimated 50,000 battery-reliant attack drones used per month. Securing powerful and reliable American-made advanced batteries represents a critical national security priority. Many of the American military’s small drones and similar devices have dependencies upon China, with batteries being an area of particular weakness.”

China manufactures “80 percent of all lithium-ion batteries, but that dominance is only the tip of the iceberg,” the report’s authors write, going on to explain that batteries developed in other countries are also “deeply and dangerously dependent upon China for the underlying components and critical minerals in battery supply chains.”

Although China leads in battery materials, the report’s authors note that Beijing remains vulnerable “while the United States and its core allies remain strong.”

“It is time for new guardrails, muscular statecraft, and a unified international response to non-market manipulation,” the report concludes. “Building critical supply chains that are independent of China’s coercive economic practices can help unleash a wave of cooperation among free-market nations that will lift up both established allies and emerging market partners and turn the tide against China’s parasitic economic model.”

The Trump administration has weighed support for a lithium production plant in Imperial County, California. The Department of Energy has also moved to streamline lithium projects in North Carolina and the Texarkana region to challenge China’s dominance in the industry.

MORE STORIES