Arti Bali
Washington, Feb 3 (.) The United States will convene its inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial on Wednesday, bringing together international delegations to address growing concerns over supply chain vulnerabilities for critical minerals vital to technological innovation, economic strength, and national security.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will host the meeting at the State Department, the first ministerial focused solely on critical minerals. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will attend and meet one-on-one with Rubio on Tuesday.
This is the first such meeting displaying how Washington approaches mineral security, as President Donald Trump has aligned US critical-minerals policy with a state-capitalist model, using government money and guarantees to backstop mining and processing projects that might otherwise struggle to compete with China.
The administration launched Pax Silica in December, 2025, an initiative aimed at building secure supply chains for silicon and other minerals essential to Artificial Intelligence. The approach has three parts: fast-tracking permits for domestic projects, taking equity stakes and offering price guarantees to strategic producers, and cutting bilateral deals backed by public financing.
Washington has devised a strategy to bind these instruments together into what it calls a “coalition of capabilities”. Whether this strategy delivers lasting supply security will depend on how well it is executed rather than the plan’s design.
Vice President JD Vance will deliver opening remarks alongside Rubio at 9:00 am EST, signaling the administration’s prioritisation of mineral security issues. The event comes as the United States seeks to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, particularly China, which dominates global production of rare earth elements and other strategic materials.
David Copley, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Global Supply Chains, and Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg will also address participants, according to the statement issued by the State Department.
The ministerial meeting comes at a time when the geopolitical competition is at its peak over resources crucial to electric vehicle batteries, semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy systems, and military hardware. Critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements, have emerged as strategic flashpoints between major powers.
The United States’ quest to secure critical minerals goes well beyond America-First deals in the Western Hemisphere. In 2025, Washington forged partnerships with allies such as Australia, Canada, Japan, and several European countries, while also exploring agreements with resource-rich nations across Africa and Latin America.
The administration has pursued bilateral arrangements with Australia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Ukraine. These cover upstream investment, processing cooperation, and long-term purchase agreements, all aimed at reducing dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains.
The scale of China’s dominance is stark. The Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 found that for 19 out of 20 strategic minerals, China leads in refining, with an average 70 percent market share.
The bilateral deals involve collaborations between government entities and private companies. Governments participate financially and guide private investments through sovereign wealth funds, government-backed equity, and public-finance guarantees, making sure money goes to industries or assets that are strategically important for the country.
In October, the US and Abu Dhabi governments said they would invest USD 1.8 billion with private equity fund Orion Resource Partners into mining and refining projects globally to boost Western access to lithium, rare earths, and other critical minerals.
MP Materials plans to build a rare earths processing plant in Saudi Arabia with the U.S. Defence Department and Saudi state miner Ma’aden. The project aims to strengthen refining capacity in the Middle East and diversify global supplies.
Right now, China controls most rare earth refining and magnet production, materials crucial for advanced technologies.
It is worth mentioning that the Trump administration has tied mineral deals to security commitments, reconstruction funds, and preferential access rights. With Ukraine and the DRC, critical minerals diplomacy has been linked to security guarantees, rebuilding agendas, and future US investment. Some agreements are still being hammered out, particularly with Ukraine.
On Dec 5, the US planned to take a stake in a new partnership to market Congo’s minerals, potentially giving American buyers first dibs on copper and cobalt. The talks happened a day after Trump hosted leaders from the DRC and Rwanda to sign a deal ending a protracted conflict in Congo’s mineral-rich east and stabilizing supply chains. Congo holds about 72 percent of global cobalt reserves and produces over 74 percent of the supply, much of it from artisanal mines.
But there is one strategic flaw: some countries that the US seeks to involve in these coalitions are simultaneously confronted with the risk of renewed tariffs, trade restrictions, or other unilateral measures from Washington.
Bilateral deals for critical materials, such as rare earths, require tools that the US uses to exert influence: economic coercion, regulatory pressure, or selective incentives, which can inadvertently undermine the broader reindustrialization and supply-chain objectives that Pax Silica is designed to promote.
A flaw exists in the architecture of US strategic mineral arrangements, as partner nations being solicited for long-term industrial commitments find themselves simultaneously subject to trade measures that may complicate these very investments. The United States has adopted an approach that integrates economic relationships with broader instruments of foreign policy, raising questions about whether domestic priorities may overshadow the multilateral principles underpinning initiatives such as Pax Silica. For these partnerships to prove durable, transparency and predictability in terms and conditions will be essential.
. . VAN SKA