Ontario Premier Doug Ford has warned he is prepared to cut off both electricity exports and critical minerals to the United States after Trump imposed 50% tariffs on about US$20 billion of Canadian goods, including autos, auto parts and steel. Michigan currently receives about 6% of its power from Ontario via four cross-border transmission lines with 2,000 MW transfer capacity, and Ford has already imposed a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to Michigan, Minnesota and New York in 2025. Any suspension of Ontario shipments would hit US supply of high‑grade nickel from the Sudbury Basin (Vale, Glencore) and uranium refined at Cameco’s Blind River facility, the world’s largest commercial uranium refinery.

US export restrictions taking effect later in August will force some lithium-ion battery scrap, including black mass, and tungsten scrap to be sold to US buyers, but GEM Mining Consulting’s Alina Karpunina argues supply security hinges on how much of this material is actually converted into qualified secondary minerals. DOE data show a 2023 US mismatch, with intermediate facilities able to process nearly 175,000 tons of batteries and scrap, but only about 35,500 tons of battery-material recovery capacity and 76,000 tons more merely planned. Karpunina proposes a “scrap-to-security conversion ratio” based on contained critical-mineral units recovered to customer specification, warning that export controls without robust domestic processing risk idle feedstock and continued reliance on primary mining.

New American Industrial Alliance and supply chain AI firm Exiger have launched the “Ground Truth” Critical Minerals Readiness Survey to map gaps between US industrial demand and available domestic or allied supply, following White House Executive Order 14415 on defence supply chains. The survey drills down to unmet needs by spec, grade, alloy and purity, and contrasts reshoring goals with actual sourcing capabilities across NAIA’s member base and wider manufacturers. Results, processed via Exiger’s 1EXIGER.AI platform, will feed a policy and investment “blueprint” to be unveiled on 16 September 2026 in Washington, DC.