Abstract: Tellurium is one of the key metals in the strategic rivalry of major global powers, and it has been included in the critical minerals lists of several countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Recently, the United States’ strategic considerations regarding tellurium’s “critical status” shifted from a proposal to remove it to ultimately retaining it, reflecting a trade-off between “economic rationality” and “strategic security”. A systematic analysis of the tellurium resource endowments, industrial chain structures, and policy orientations of United States is of great significance for optimizing China’s tellurium resource security strategy. This paper reviews the diverse applications of tellurium in traditional industries, new energy, semiconductors, and defense. Drawing on data from the U.S. Geological Survey, it analyzes the characteristics of the United States in terms of tellurium reserves, production landscape, import and export dynamics, industrial chain structure, and military applications. Concurrently, it investigates the multiple considerations underlying the U.S. decision-making on tellurium’s “critical status”, including economic impact assessments, domestic supply chain resilience, and military strategic needs. The findings reveal that in recent years, the United States has significantly strengthened its domestic tellurium supply capacity, making the impact of external supply disruptions on its GDP and supply chain relatively limited. At the same time, its comprehensive technological and industrial chain advantages in the cadmium telluride photovoltaic sector, combined with the irreplaceable role of tellurium-based materials in defense equipment have become the key driver behind the retention of tellurium’s “critical status”. In response to the dual challenges posed by U.S. policy adjustments and the continued growth in global tellurium demand, China should consolidate its tellurium resource advantages while accelerating the transition from primary products to high-value-added sectors such as high-purity tellurium and CdZnTe wafers, breaking through bottlenecks in high-end preparation technologies to achieve a technology-driven industrial upgrade. Meanwhile, it should establish a dynamic response mechanism for the tellurium industry, using flexible instruments— “stockpiling, trade, and recycling”—to adapt to changes in global supply-demand dynamics and policy shifts of major economies like the U.S., thus maintaining a forward-looking and proactive tellurium resource strategy in a complex environment.