China Owns Canada’s Only Antimony Mine and Shuttered It in Critical Minerals Power Play
14th March 2026
In the rugged interior of Newfoundland, an hour’s drive west from the Canadian Forces Base in Gander, sits a dormant mine with profound implications for the nation’s security and prosperity. Beaver Brook could be the largest North American producer of antimony — a critical mineral threaded through the entire spectrum of modern military hardware, from small arms and artillery shells to advanced missile seekers and night-vision goggles.
But China owns the mine and shut it down in early 2023 — one year before Beijing imposed export controls blocking antimony sales to U.S. military end users, driving prices from about US$5,900 per tonne to more than US$50,000.
Antimony forms in crystalline masses, often clustered in dark silver needles — nature’s own suggestion of the gunmetal world it enters. It was little known before Washington recognized that Beijing had quietly secured a near-monopoly over the world’s critical mineral supply, antimony among them. The metal fires every conventional round, hardens military components, and provides the infrared edge that defines lethality in modern conflict. Armies could not sustain combat for even a single day without it — a reality that has driven urgent U.S. efforts to stockpile it, revive domestic processing, and cut reliance on China and Russia.
I guess the Canadian government is just stupid.