For decades, TNT was one of the most reliable explosives in the United States — used in military weapons, commercial mining, and road building. But the war in Ukraine has upended that supply chain, creating a global shortage that is starting to affect both American defense production and construction, The New York Times reported Monday.

Once plentiful and cheap at about 50 cents per pound, TNT — or trinitrotoluene — was produced by the millions of tons for both world wars and through the Cold War. But production in the United States ended in the mid-1980s over environmental concerns. Since then, Washington has relied on foreign suppliers, primarily in China, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine.

That pipeline has now dried up.

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