USTMA Supports the Development of a Domestic Supply of Natural Rubber
Importance of natural rubber to the U.S. economy
• Natural rubber is derived from the sap of certain plants and currently, all large-scale commercial production is from the Hevea Brasiliensis tree (Hevea).
• The U.S. consumed 1.78 billion pounds of natural rubber in 2020. Tires are the largest market, but natural rubber is used in over 40,000 products including hoses and belts for automotive, medical gloves (including those used in the fight against Covid-19), toys, clothing, and other items used every day.
• A domestic natural rubber industry would provide jobs throughout the entire rubber supply chain. This includes farming hundreds of thousands of acres of land which could not be used for other crops and processing plants throughout the country.
Role of natural rubber in manufacturing safe and durable tires
• Natural rubber is critical for all tires as it serves to provide durability. Certain tire performance can only be achieved through the use of natural rubber.
• Commercial and military aircraft tire treads are almost completely made from natural rubber because synthetic rubber cannot perform in this application.
• Natural rubber is also the main component in heavy duty truck and bus tire treads due to its unique properties.
Threats to the current natural rubber supply
• Over 90% of current natural rubber supply comes from southeast Asia.
• There is little genetic diversity in the rubber tree and thus it is very susceptible to disease.
• Loss of our supply of natural rubber from southeast Asia would further exacerbate supply chain issues in the U.S. and likely lead to restricted production of truck tires, aircraft tires and other tire types. This may also affect our defense capabilities (military vehicles, aircraft, and uses beyond tires).
• If a significant amount of natural rubber production is lost, there is insufficient synthetic rubber available to make up the shortfall.
Alternatives to Hevea natural rubber – A number of plants produce natural rubber, but work on two of them – guayule and TKS (dandelion) – has led to successful experimental tires. Both these plants can be grown in different parts of the U.S. Both provide equivalent performance to Hevea natural rubber in tires, and both contain valuable co-products which serve to reduce the cost of the rubber. Natural rubber from other plants, such as sunflower, is also being studied.
Since natural rubber is critical to the tire industry, national security and the US economy, USTMA strongly supports efforts to promote the development of a domestic supply of alternatives to Hevea natural rubber.
USTMA urges relevant government agencies and Congress to develop a domestic natural rubber industry including:
• Economic support for farmers to incentivize the needed investments to help them adapt to planting rubber-producing crops as part of the normal agricultural economy.
• Economic support to scale commercial processing facilities to extract the rubber and other high value co-products from both guayule and TKS.
• Develop sustainability criteria for a domestic natural rubber supply.
• Create further market opportunities for co-products from sources of natural rubber in sustainable fuels and the chemicals space.
• Increase investment into public research to further develop domestic alternatives to Hevea natural rubber.