US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday that tells military contractors to start moving away from Beijing-linked supply chains by January 2027. The order, called Securing America’s Defence Supply Chains and Ensuring Domestic Acquisition of Critical Minerals, makes the shift part of a formal procurement push rather than an immediate ban.
The timing matters because defence contractors are being asked to plan now for a cutoff that begins later, not today. The order is aimed at reducing dependence on China for defence-related critical minerals, and it comes as the US Department of Defence depends heavily on those materials, including rare earths, for components used in weapon systems.
Trump did not name China in the order, even as the target is clear from its language and deadline. The document says the United States must secure its supply chains against physical, cyber, and economic subversion, which gives the administration a broader national-security frame while pointing at the supply chain network that has long tied defence manufacturing to China.
Military contractors are required to submit formal mitigation plans that identify non-compliant sources, document exhaustive efforts to find compliant material or prove none was available, and lay out steps to remove those sources from supply chains. What the order does not spell out is the penalty if a contractor fails to file those plans or still depends on non-compliant inputs after January 2027. It also leaves open how compliance will be judged in practice, since the order does not define the boundary between a compliant source and one that falls on the wrong side of the rule.
That gap is where the policy will be tested. China accounts for roughly two-thirds of global rare earth mining and about 90 per cent of rare earth refining, giving it heavy leverage over the supply chain the order is trying to reshape. The result is a deadline with real weight, but enforcement and sourcing definitions will determine whether contractors can move fast enough to satisfy it.
