The article says the US currently imports about 10,000 tons of tungsten per year, and has no active production, so that's also its current usage.

Tungsten costs about $200/kg [0]

So the total US tungsten usage is $2 billion/year.

If the price goes up 20x overnight, and nobody changes their purchasing behaviours, that costs US businesses, consumers and government $38 billion.

That's a lot of money for most people, but it's being spread over a wide base.

For a comparison, the US uses about 20 million barrels of oil per day [1] or 7 billion per year. So a 20x shock in tungsten would be roughly equivalent to oil prices going up $5/barrel. In fact oil fluctuates by that much most quarters [2], if not most months. People complain a little when it goes up, but it takes more than that to really have a noticeable effect on the economy.

A 2x or 5x price increase - a huge shock in any context - would be problematic for a few companies, but really business as usual for the US as a whole.

[0] https://www.metal.com/tungsten

[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_oil_consumption

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha...