On July 30, 2026, President Trump signed a Presidential Determination under Section 101 of the Defense Production Act, directing the Secretary of Commerce to take all appropriate action, including the issuance of regulations, rules, guidance, and procedures, to secure the supply of recoverable critical minerals and materials found inside end-of-life products including permanent magnets and lithium-ion batteries. The White House fact sheet accompanying the Determination characterizes the delegation as authority to institute export restrictions on those materials. Implementation details are still to be determined. The Determination directs authority without yet issuing specific rules. The structural direction, however, is unmistakable. The federal government has just told the market that the raw recoverable critical minerals stream flowing out of the United States as unfinished intermediates is now a national security concern, and that authority exists to restrict its export. This piece unpacks what the Determination says, what it does not yet do, and why domestic post-treatment refining just became a structural advantage for recyclers that finish material to battery-grade specification on US soil rather than exporting it for finishing elsewhere.
What the Recoverable Critical Minerals Determination Actually Says
The Presidential Determination is a memorandum from the President to the Secretary of Commerce, invoking Section 101 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 as amended. Section 101 provides broad priorities and allocations authority over materials, services, and facilities that are scarce and critical to national defense. The Determination makes three specific findings and issues one direction.
The first finding is that recoverable critical minerals and materials are industrial resources necessary to promote the national defense. The second is that the United States relies heavily on imports of certain of these minerals from foreign sources, and that this reliance threatens serious and sustained supply chain disruptions. The third is that immediate action is required to secure the supply of recoverable CMMs.
The Determination then defines its scope with specificity. Under Section 2(a), the term "recoverable critical minerals and materials" includes, and the primary-source text names them in this order: "black mass, end-of-life, rare-earth permanent magnets or other goods that have fully completed the manufacturing process; swarf; and other waste and scrap containing critical minerals and materials." Copper scrap is explicitly excluded because it is already covered under a separate July 30, 2025 proclamation. The definition is expressly aimed at end-of-life material and industrial scrap. Newly-refined battery-grade material that has just completed a domestic recycling process is not end-of-life material, and is not scrap. The scope of the Determination points at the recoverable feedstock stream, not at the finished output of a recycling process.
The Determination directs the Secretary of Commerce to implement the finding by taking all appropriate action under Section 101, including by issuing regulations, rules, guidance, and procedures. The White House fact sheet characterizes this delegation as authority to institute export restrictions on the covered materials. The Section 101 priorities and allocations framework can support a broader range of interventions than export controls alone, including priority-rated contracts and material allocation. The fact sheet's specific reference to export restrictions signals the initial direction of policy interest.
Two clarifications matter for reading this correctly. The Determination is a delegation of authority, not an active export restriction. The Secretary of Commerce now has the legal basis to institute controls without new legislation, but no specific controls have been announced yet. Second, the Determination does not restrict primary mining, primary refining of newly extracted ore, or the domestic movement of critical minerals from one processor to another. Its focus is the exportable stream of already-in-country recoverable material, with black mass named directly in the primary text.
What "Recoverable" Means and Why It Matters for the Recycling Industry
The word "recoverable" is doing significant work in the Determination and deserves careful attention. In the fact sheet's usage, recoverable critical minerals and materials are those that can be reclaimed from end-of-life products already inside the United States. The recyclable side of the battery industry sits precisely in this category. The stream of recoverable material moving through the US recycling pipeline includes end-of-life EV and consumer batteries arriving at collection and sorting facilities, black mass produced by shredders and mechanical processors, and industrial scrap generated by cell manufacturing plants ramping across the Southeast, Midwest, and Mountain West.
The size of that stream is not small. Per Fastmarkets' 2024 assessment, US lithium-ion battery shredding capacity was projected at roughly 230,000 tonnes for 2024 against approximately 90,000 tonnes of available scrap, meaning the shredding infrastructure has outpaced feedstock but the feedstock pool itself continues to grow rapidly. Cell manufacturing scrap alone is projected to expand substantially through the late 2020s. The Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office projects that North American battery cell production will exceed 1,200 GWh per year by 2030 based on Argonne National Laboratory forecasting, and that manufacturing base generates production waste at rates that Fraunhofer FFB research documents at 15 to 30 percent during early ramp years and around 10 percent at year five. Every additional gigawatt-hour of domestic cell manufacturing adds recoverable material to the pool the Determination's authority now covers.
Historically, a meaningful share of that recoverable material has flowed offshore. Fastmarkets documented in mid-2024 that spot deals for US-origin NCM black mass were transacting at 68 to 75 percent CIF Korea payables for nickel and cobalt, and just 3 to 5 percent payables for the lithium content. The economic logic of shred-and-ship business models has always depended on offshore refiners, primarily in Korea and China, taking the intermediate material and finishing it into battery-grade output. The July 30 Determination signals that Washington now views that outbound flow as a national security concern, and holds the legal authority to restrict it.
The Practical Effect: Feedstock In, Finished Product Out
If and when the Secretary of Commerce moves from delegated authority to specific export controls, the practical effect on the US recoverable critical minerals supply chain will be immediate. Feedstock that today flows offshore for finishing will need to find a domestic finisher instead. The list of operational US commercial-scale finishers capable of converting black mass and other recovered intermediates into battery-grade output is short.
Green Li-ion's GREEN HYDROREJUVENATION™ process converts unsorted black mass directly into 99% pure precursor cathode active material, battery-grade lithium carbonate, and recovered graphite through modular processing lines running at 730 metric tonnes per year per line. The Atoka, Oklahoma facility is one of the small number of operational sites in North America producing finished battery-grade recycled materials at commercial scale today. Redwood Materials, American Battery Technology Company, and a handful of other operators complete the list. Ascend Elements and Li-Cycle, both of which were building downstream refining capacity through billion-dollar single-site projects, entered creditor protection during the 2025 to 2026 window, a story the Beyond Black Mass analysis published July 20 examined in detail.
The commercial implication is straightforward. Companies that convert recoverable critical minerals into finished battery-grade output inside the United States are the ones the market will need to work with if outbound flows get restricted. Companies whose commercial model depends on exporting recovered intermediates for offshore finishing face a policy risk they did not face a week ago. The strategic question for every OEM, cell manufacturer, and industrial buyer that has been sourcing recoverable critical minerals feedstock is now different in kind. It is no longer a question of price and reliability alone. It is a question of whether the recycler on the other end of the contract can complete the conversion from feedstock to finished material without depending on a supply chain link the federal government has flagged for restriction.
Why Post-Treatment Refining Sits Above the Restriction Line
The plain reading of the Determination's language points the authority at the recoverable material stream itself, not at the finished output of domestic post-treatment refining. The primary text names black mass by name and defines the covered scope as end-of-life products, goods that have reached end-of-life after fully completing the manufacturing process, swarf, and other waste and scrap containing critical minerals and materials. Newly-refined battery-grade pCAM, lithium carbonate, NCM hydroxide, or recovered graphite that has just emerged from a domestic recycling process is not end-of-life material. It is freshly produced battery-grade output ready for anode or cathode manufacturing. The primary-source definition does not point at this category of material. It points at what feeds into it.
Implementation details are still being written, and the Secretary of Commerce retains discretion over the specific scope of any future export controls. A conservative reading suggests the authority is aimed at the unfinished intermediate stream. A more expansive reading could theoretically extend to finished outputs. The direction of policy travel, however, is clear. Restricting exports of finished battery-grade materials would defeat the Determination's own commercial logic by preventing US refiners from selling into allied supply chains in the EU, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere. Post-treatment refining that finishes material domestically and then delivers it into cell manufacturing, whether US-domestic or allied, is the outcome the Determination is designed to encourage rather than the outcome it is designed to restrict.
This is why domestic post-treatment refining just became a structural advantage. Recyclers whose commercial model depends on the outbound flow of recovered intermediates face a headwind that a Commerce Department rule could turn into a wall on 30 days' notice. Recyclers whose commercial model finishes the material in-country face a tailwind from the same policy instrument.
The Policy Context Around the July 30 Determination
The July 30 Determination does not stand alone. It sits inside a policy sequence that has been building through the first half of 2026. In March 2025, the President signed an executive order to boost American mineral production and streamline permitting. In April 2025, a companion order addressed defense acquisitions and the defense industrial base. In January 2026, an executive order authorized trade agreements with partners on imports of processed critical minerals and derivative products. On July 20, 2026, the President signed an executive order specifically addressing domestic acquisition of critical materials for defense supply chains. The July 30 Determination is the next step in that sequence, extending the DPA framework specifically to the recoverable side of the supply chain.
The Section 232 investigation on processed critical minerals with a July 13, 2026 status report deadline continues to run in parallel. The Defense Logistics Agency's July 2, 2026 lithium carbonate solicitation, Green Li-ion's coverage of which examines how federal procurement is being rebuilt around domestic battery-grade material specifications, established the first-ever lithium entry in the National Defense Stockpile. Federal equity stakes in MP Materials, USA Rare Earth, Lithium Americas, and Trilogy Metals demonstrate the willingness to move from grants and loans to direct vertical integration where the strategic case supports it. The July 30 Determination extends that policy energy to the recycling side of the equation for the first time.
The July 30 Determination is also consistent with the parallel policy environment outside the United States. The European Union's Battery Regulation 2023/1542 requires recycled content in new cells starting 2031 for lithium, cobalt, nickel, and lead, and that recycled content must be verified as finished battery-grade material re-entering new cells, not as recovered intermediates shipped to offshore refiners. The convergence between US policy limiting outbound recoverable critical minerals flows and EU policy requiring finished domestic recycled content produces the same underlying commercial signal for battery manufacturers globally. Finished domestic refining is the pathway that satisfies both regulatory regimes.
What Cell Manufacturers and OEMs Should Do Now
For OEMs, cell manufacturers, and industrial buyers evaluating recycled critical mineral supply, the July 30 Determination changes the procurement calculus enough that a review of current supplier arrangements is warranted this quarter, not next year.
The three questions that matter now are direct. First, does your recycling partner convert recoverable critical minerals into finished battery-grade materials inside the United States, or does the partner ship intermediates offshore for finishing? A partner in the second category is now carrying policy risk that could translate into supply disruption if and when the Secretary of Commerce issues specific export controls. Second, if your partner does finish material domestically, at what scale and with what quality specification? Battery-grade output that meets cell manufacturer requirements for particle size, purity, and consistency is not the same as recovered intermediate that is technically "finished" but not usable in a production cell line. Third, does the partner have offtake agreements or third-party commercial sales that validate the finished output at real commercial volume? Aspirational finishing capacity is not the same as demonstrated commercial supply.
Procurement teams ready to evaluate domestic post-treatment refining capacity can begin partnership conversations with qualified recyclers such as Green Li-ion, whose GREEN HYDROREJUVENATION™ lines at Atoka, Oklahoma process black mass directly into finished pCAM and lithium carbonate at 730 metric tonnes per year per modular line under a binding offtake agreement with commodity trader WMC through 2030, and whose NCM hydroxide produced from American-recycled raw materials has been listed on the Metalshub platform for direct commercial sale. The company operates lines with a presence across the US, Singapore, Korea, Germany, and Australia, which matters for OEMs coordinating recycled supply across their global manufacturing footprint. The Atoka facility is the operational proof point for the specific business model the July 30 Determination signals federal support for.
The Honest Summary
The July 30, 2026 Presidential Determination is not itself an export restriction. It is a delegation of authority. The Secretary of Commerce now has the legal basis to institute export controls on recoverable critical minerals and materials, and no specific controls have been announced yet. Implementation details are still to be determined, and the actual commercial impact will depend on how the Commerce Department chooses to exercise the newly delegated authority in the coming months.
What has changed is the direction of policy travel. Washington has now formally identified the outbound flow of recoverable critical minerals from end-of-life products as a national security concern and has positioned the tools to restrict that flow if it chooses to. The commercial implication for the recycling industry is that the historical business model of shredding batteries and shipping black mass abroad for finishing has just become policy-exposed in a way it was not last week. The alternative model of finishing recovered material domestically through post-treatment refining has just become policy-supported in a way it was not last week. Green Li-ion's GREEN HYDROREJUVENATION™ technology at Atoka is one of the operational examples of the model the Determination signals support for, and the manufacturers who position their recycled critical mineral supply around domestic post-treatment refining now, while contracting terms are still favorable, will be the ones best insulated when the Commerce Department moves from delegated authority to specific rules.
The details are still TBD. The structural direction is not.
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