The Trump administration’s new initiative seeks to stockpile critical minerals, create investment pools, and collaborate with like-minded allies. 

For decades, America has flexed the muscles of economic statecraft to bend global commerce to its will. Tariffs under President Donald Trump pushed countries with vastly different military power, GDPs, and geopolitical standing back to the negotiating table, often extracting terms tilted toward US interests.

The People’s Republic of China has spent generations building a mercantilist empire in rare earths and other essential inputs. Today, Beijing controls roughly 70 percent of rare earth mining and more than 90 percent of processing and refining capacity. A chokehold that has allowed it to weaponize interdependence as a tool of geopolitical influence.

Export controls have been used as blunt instruments in diplomatic disputes, notably against Japan in the 2010s and repeatedly against nations that press on Taiwan policy or defense cooperation with the United States. When China restricted exports of germanium and gallium in 2025 in response to US tariffs, minerals vital to semiconductor manufacturing, the message was blunt: America lacked leverage over Beijing in this sector.

That moment marked a reckoning: the United States could renegotiate trade agreements, but if it could not secure the raw materials that power advanced industries, its leverage would always be incomplete. The Trump administration’s response has been as multifaceted as the challenge is complex. Rather than treating supply chains as an afterthought, the administration has placed them at the center of national strategy. Among the recent and boldest measures is Project Vault, a first‑of‑its‑kind strategic critical minerals stockpile modeled in spirit if not in function on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

With roughly $12 billion in seed funding (including a $10 billion loan approved by the US Export‑Import Bank (EXIM) and nearly $2 billion in private investment), Project Vault will purchase and store critical minerals such as rare earth elements, cobalt, nickel, and lithium to shield US manufacturers from supply shocks and geopolitical coercion.

This stockpile is not merely a warehouse; it embodies a broader policy shift. The EXIM loan, the largest in the bank’s history for such a purpose, moves the institution from traditional export credit activities into the realm of proactive supply chain security. According to EXIM officials, Project Vault is intended not just to buffer shortages but to reduce dependence on foreign-controlled supply chains, strengthen domestic processing and manufacturing capacity, and support US economic and national security objectives.

Beyond the financial architecture, Project Vault signals a strategic doctrine: critical minerals are not passive commodities but strategic assets that underpin everything from electric vehicles to 5G infrastructure to advanced weaponry. If the United States is serious about competitiveness in the 21st century, it cannot outsource the foundation of its industrial base.

Yet the stockpile is only one pillar. Behind the scenes, policymakers have discussed the creation of what amounts to a sovereign‑style investment vehicle designed to co‑invest in upstream mining and processing projects globally. While not formally labeled as a sovereign wealth fund, there is increased use of public capital alongside private partners to underwrite long‑term access to essential minerals. As Ashley Forbes, a leader in the critical minerals industry, put it in her social media post, “through MP Materials, Trilogy Metals, and Lithium Americas, taxpayers now hold equity or equity-linked stakes in multiple critical minerals-focused public companies.”

But stockpiles and investment pools can only go so far without partners. The third pillar is alliances. For all the talk of this administration’s realism and restraint costing it allies and partners, it has formed new alliances with clearer mandates that contribute to American national security and economic security. 

In December 2025, the United States launched the Pax Silica initiative, a coalition of like‑minded nations committed to building secure, resilient supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductors, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. Pax Silica’s declaration, signed by an expanding group of partners, underscores cooperation across mineral refining, logistics corridors, and technology ecosystems.

Unlike traditional security pacts, Pax Silica is an economic‑industrial alliance. Its members, including allies across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, recognize that future supply chains must be as trusted as the alliances that protect territorial borders. The inclusion of nations such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates reflects Washington’s ambition to counter coercive dependencies by knitting together a web of supply-chain security guarantees.

Pax Silica aims to coordinate investment, develop shared infrastructure, align regulatory standards, and ensure that the technologies of tomorrow are not held hostage to the whims of a single dominant producer. In essence, it is supply chain diplomacy writ large. It is a recognition that America’s industrial policy must be global in scope and coalition‑based in practice.

Critics might argue that stockpiles and investment funds are bureaucratic exercises. But in a world where China has demonstrated the power to choke off critical inputs, these institutional innovations are necessary correctives. For too long, the United States outsourced not just manufacturing but the upstream lifeblood of its technological advantage. That era is over.

Project Vault, the emerging wealth‑style investment model, and Pax Silica together represent a holistic approach to economic statecraft: secure the raw materials, invest in the capacity to process and use them, and build alliances that spread risk and magnify leverage.

This is supply chain policy as national security doctrine, and it couldn’t come at a more consequential time. Access to critical minerals affects everything from electric vehicles and renewable energy to missile defense and artificial intelligence. If the United States fails to secure these inputs, it will cede not just markets, but strategic autonomy. As the United States embarks on an ambitious drive to lead advanced manufacturing in the fourth industrial revolution, it cannot afford to be cramped with compromised supply chains that could starve its industries and undermine its military capabilities.

At the Honolulu Defense Forum last month, United States and allied officials underscored the need to build strategic reserves of critical components and materials, especially those vulnerable to single-source suppliers or long production lead times. They emphasized that investing in stockpiles is far more cost-effective than risking operational failure during a crisis due to supply shortages.

Kimberly Lehn, the senior director of Pacific Forum’s annual Honolulu Defense Forum, in a manner of reinforcing the argument, said, “industrial strength is a core pillar of national strength and credible deterrence.”  

The founder of Anduril, Palmer Lucky, drawing lessons from World War II, has called for modern manufacturing systems to shift from slow manufacturing processes to AI-driven, autonomous systems. While the United States leads in the adoption of AI-driven and autonomous manufacturing systems, the value chain cannot be laden with chokepoints.

Whether these initiatives deliver as promised will depend on execution, sustained political commitment across administrations, and the ability to forge durable alliances in a fractured world. But the alternative of “business as usual” or neoliberal trade policies in the shadow of a dominant China is no longer tenable.

In the geoeconomic contest of the 21st century, control over critical minerals may well decide who leads. With Project Vault, a sovereign wealth‑style strategy, and Pax Silica, the Trump administration has taken its first decisive steps into that arena. And for America’s industrial and national security future, those steps were long overdue.

About the Author: Akhil Ramesh

Akhil Ramesh is the director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Pacific Forum. He oversees all research, analysis, and programming on India. He is a columnist at The Hill, and his research has been featured in CNN, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg, and published in global outlets such as Nikkei Asia, The Japan Times, The National Interest, and South China Morning Post.

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