On 30 July 2026, US President Donald Trump signed Presidential Determination No. 2026-19. It invokes Section 101 of the Defense Production Act and gives the Secretary of Commerce the authority to restrict exports of black mass, magnet scrap, and other categories of critical-mineral scrap.
The order defines "recoverable critical minerals and materials" (CMMs) to include black mass, end-of-life rare-earth permanent magnets, swarf, and other waste and scrap containing critical minerals. It also folds in materials already designated under earlier executive orders and legislations. The White House fact sheet frames these materials as inputs the country needs for defense, not as waste awaiting disposal.
The determination itself does not ban anything. It merely delegates authority. The Commerce Department still has to write the implementing rules. Those could mean license requirements, quotas, or an outright ban on specific material-destination combinations. Neither the determination nor the accompanying fact sheet gives a timeline for any of it. For now, black mass, battery scrap, and magnet scrap keep moving across US borders exactly as they did the day before the order was signed.
According to figures from the Basel Action Network, the US exports roughly 33,000 metric tonnes of e-waste a month. This "waste" is full of critical materials, such as lithium, that can be recovered. This policy aims to funnel those materials to domestic recyclers, which have faced challenges in recent times. Li-Cycle and Ascend Elements, two prominent North American recyclers, both announced bankruptcies within the span of two years. The US does have domestic mineral deposits, but new mines and refineries take years to build and specialized expertise to run. Recovering the same materials from finished goods can bridge that gap in the meantime.
Even before Commerce writes a single rule, the policy shift itself is the signal worth watching. Treating black mass and other scrap as essential to national defense puts it in the same protected category as the country's other critical minerals. With federal regulations requiring the defense industry and other manufacturers to stop buying minerals from China by 1 January 2027, the US has to take action - and soon.
For NEU Battery Materials, the ability to deploy modular systems domestically is exactly what this kind of policy rewards. It's the same argument that applies to pricing risk in the lithium market. Having local capabilities is the key to self-reliance and material security.