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Inside the South Korean mines that will provide U.S. with key metal for Iran War 93%
5/14/2026, 12:06:19 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 32 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Availability Heuristic, with Ambiguity (Equivocation) as the most egregious example at 32.2% saturation with 218 hits. Analysis detected 2,184 faulty-reasoning hits from 677 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 89.1% and a BS Rank of 93% (1,204 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 92.80% of the video peer group.
One of these blasts is the United States at war.
The other is to rebuild the country's weapon stockpile, but what brought us to the eastern mountains of South Korea
isn't just about weapons. It's the global battle for the Earth's key resources.
Every missile and munition the US military has fired in the war against Iran has burned through stockpiles of advanced weapons and ammunition, including Tomahawk, Patriot, and precision strike missiles.
The risk that the US may not have enough if there was ever a war with China.
We have great faith in American industry.
We've seen in the past when American industry can spin up, but these things do take time.
There's also a dwindling supply of the critical mineral that's vital to building them, tungsten. It's used in fighter jets, bunker buster bombs, armor piercing rounds, and AI guided missile systems.
Tough enough to penetrate extremely heat resistant, tungsten is indispensable for defense.
The US government is actively searching for more, which is what brings us back to South Korea.
They're finding it here at a mine holding millions of tons of tungsten ore owned by an American company.
There are very few large scale tungsten mines on the planet.
>> Louis Black is the CEO of Almonty
Industries who bought and reopened the Sandong mine here just months ago, 30 years after it was shut down.
>> And in this world you'll see a lot of tungsten.
>> Over a mile underground, Black took us deep into the mine's maze of tunnels.
>> You can't feel it. >> it. I think it just feels like rock.
To see up close the critical mineral that is as dense as gold but as delicate as porcelain and crucial for US national security.
>> We're not in crisis.
We're just in need.
This is a hard mineral to get out of the ground.
To show you, this is a UV light. I'm going to turn off my lamp.
You can see all of these flakes that are glowing, that's tungsten.
But it isn't just the defense industry.
There's a bit of tungsten in everything from semiconductors to smartphones, light bulbs to auto parts.
And right now, there is no substitute.
>> As demand is growing because ultimately they keep finding new usages.
For decades, China has dominated global supply, producing over 80% of the world's tungsten and using more than half of it.
>> It's a very intense, dangerous, and environmentally hazardous uh process to refine this tungsten.
People in America don't want to do that.
The Chinese are very willing to do that and at a low cost.
>> Last year, after Trump became US president, China slapped export controls on several rare earths and critical minerals, skyrocketing tungsten prices.
The trade war only making matters worse.
And removing those restrictions is one of the most pressing issues for the US
as Trump meets China's leader, Xi Jinping.
>> Everyone has the same problem. Question is, how do you deal with it without looking weak?
Here in caverns carved into the mountains, engineers are blasting every day and finding new deposits like this.
Each year, the US imports over 6,000 metric tons of processed tungsten.
At full capacity, Almonty says it could process enough tungsten to meet all of the US's import demand.
And they're hoping to get another mine up and running in Montana to establish a mine in the USA domestic supply for the future.
Having a resilient supply chain for tungsten is going to be extremely important over the next decade, two decades.
The Department of Defense has billions to spend on weapons, but rebuilding US munitions stocks will take time and tungsten, and both are in short supply.
Janice Mackey Freyer, NBC News, in Yeongwol County, South Korea.
We thank you for watching, and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app, or watch live on our YouTube channel.
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