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An alliance-based approach
In the space of a few months, the United States has launched what appears to be its most ambitious industrial strategy ever. Behind the initiatives lies the recognition that access to critical minerals is not merely a trade issue — it is the foundation of national security and technological power. Through these measures, the US is bringing Western allies together at a political level for a joint push in AI infrastructure and advanced technological industry, alongside a binding framework of agreements in which allies commit to mineral projects within the alliance to secure Western raw material supplies and preparedness.
Why now
The strategy is a direct response to a position China built over decades. Since the 1960s, Beijing has pursued a deliberate mineral policy — protectionism, price dumping and control over processing technology — that made it the dominant actor in global mineral supply and a leading trading nation. By withholding minerals, imposing export controls and driving prices below the level at which Western mines can survive, China gained a lever capable of throttling Western industry and arms production. Earlier US presidents tried to break this monopoly and failed.
For the Trump administration, the contest is about two things at once: breaking China's strategic monopoly, and reversing the trade deficits that have eroded American industry for decades. The decisive shift is conceptual — by defining access to critical minerals as a matter of national security rather than ordinary trade, Washington has moved the entire question out of the framework of free trade and into one where it can act with the full weight of security law.
The first large-scale test of this approach came in Ukraine. On 30 April 2025 the US and Ukraine signed an agreement establishing a jointly owned and managed Reconstruction Investment Fund, capitalized by half the revenues from new natural-resource projects, which gave Washington preferential access to Ukrainian deposits of lithium, titanium, graphite and rare earth elements — resources located in the middle of the European continent. Ukraine retained ownership of its resources and the right to decide what to extract, but the deal did not include the NATO-level security guarantee Kyiv had sought. For Washington the arrangement served a double purpose: securing mineral access for its own industry while drawing resources on the EU's doorstep into a US-led framework.
Pax Silica
Pax Silica is a US-led multilateral initiative launched in December 2025 to secure Western technological leadership in the competition with China. Coordinated by the US State Department, it brings allied nations together around AI infrastructure, semiconductors, critical minerals, energy and advanced manufacturing. The goal is to build the industrial and technological capacity — the supply chains — required to lead the development of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. Pax Silica is a political declaration rather than a binding trade or investment framework, but it promotes and facilitates investments and agreements between companies along the supply chain.
By the close of the second Pax Silica Summit in June 2026, the initiative counted 23 member countries: Australia, Finland, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, Norway, the Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Singapore, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, Germany, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and the European Union.
The EU, which initially resisted because the initiative cuts against its own minerals strategy, has now joined the declaration — which, notably, carries no legal force.
FORGE
The Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE) was launched at the largest ministerial meeting on critical minerals to date, held in Washington on 4 February 2026, chaired by Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Vice President JD Vance as keynote speaker. FORGE is a non-binding framework for critical minerals; in practice it is a political cooperation. Fifty-four countries took part, including the European Commission. Building on the Minerals Security Partnership from 2022, FORGE is a Western political response to China's dominant position in critical minerals: a strategic policy framework between the US and its allies on mineral extraction, investment and supply commitments.
The goal of the American administration is to introduce guaranteed price floors for minerals. Setting a price floor combined with adjustable tariff rates will shield allies' mineral extraction projects from Chinese price competition and reduce the bankruptcy risk that otherwise stands in the way of new investment. Allies wishing to take part in the sheltered Western market must commit to trading minerals within the alliance rather than importing from China. The cost of maintaining the price floor is to be distributed across the Western market, which makes the mechanism sustainable. Investment and ownership in the Western minerals industry may be public or private, and is facilitated through FORGE.
Countries wishing to take part in the Western mineral market must enter into a plurilateral mineral agreement named the Agreement on Trade and Critical Minerals (ATCM). Those remaining outside can expect tariffs on critical minerals and products derived from them entering the United States, regardless of whether they participate in FORGE.
South Korea held the chairmanship of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) when the US launched FORGE on 4 February 2026, and Korea carried the chairmanship over into FORGE until the US took over on 1 July this year. According to a press release from the Korean Embassy in Washington, the following countries had joined FORGE by then: South Korea, the US, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Belgium, India, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia and the European Commission.
On progress towards a binding agreement (ATCM), the US has signed memoranda of understanding, frameworks and/or action plans with 29 economies. In 2025: Ukraine, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, DR Congo; and in 2026: Bahrain, Argentina, the Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Chile, Bolivia, New Zealand, Poland, Armenia, India, Azerbaijan, the EU.
The EU signed a memorandum of understanding and an Action Plan towards a plurilateral agreement (ATCM) on 24 April. The negotiations are difficult because FORGE and the ATCM are a direct counterpart to the EU's own minerals legislation, the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA).
With New Zealand and Pakistan, only drafts exist so far, not signed agreements. In addition, several countries may have minerals provisions included in ordinary trade agreements with the US, among them Cambodia, Malaysia, El Salvador, Argentina, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ecuador and Jordan.
Project Vault
Project Vault, launched on 2 February 2026, two days before the FORGE meeting, is a comprehensive programme for strategic mineral reserves. The US has designated 60 raw materials as critical minerals and rare earth elements, and declared access to them a matter of national security. The legal basis was established through Proclamation 11001, signed by Donald Trump on 14 January 2026, which triggers the president's authority to control mineral imports by requiring bilateral agreements with exporting countries, and to impose tariffs or shut countries out of the US market where such agreements are absent.
Following this presidential order came a further order on 2 February 2026 establishing Project Vault, a public-private partnership worth $12 billion, financed through the Export-Import Bank and private capital. It is run by VaultCo LLC, an independent entity with its own board and management, in which EXIM holds a non-voting board observer role.
Project Vault is to build strategic reserves of the 60 designated minerals for civilian industry, while the defence sector is covered through the National Defense Stockpile. Together this will give Washington considerably greater strategic freedom of action in any conflict involving critical minerals, trade or defence security.
The Department of Defense has taken direct equity stakes in mining companies such as MP Materials, Lithium Americas and Trilogy Metals, marking a new phase in which the US military invests directly in commercial mineral extraction as part of a national security strategy.
The legal arsenal
What makes the strategy enforceable is the body of US trade and security law standing behind it. Proclamation 11001 gives the president authority over all imports of critical minerals. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act — permanent, and grounded in national security — has already been used to impose tariffs on copper and metal derivatives, and carries no expiry date. When the Supreme Court ruled on 20 February 2026 that the president could not use emergency powers (IEEPA) as the basis for tariffs, the administration shifted the same day to Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, a temporary import levy set at 10 percent — with a threatened rise to 15 percent — and an expiry of 24 July 2026. To ensure continuity beyond that deadline, it activated Section 301, which provides authority to designate a foreign regulation — including the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act — as a discriminatory trade barrier.
On 24 July 2027, the United States introduced a general and permanent tariff under Section 301 for forced labour, and a further tariff under the same section, linked to overcapacity, is expected this autumn. On 6 August, it was decided to impose tariffs on polysilicon and products derived from it. On 13 August, it was decided to impose tariffs on drones and components. The legal basis for the latter two is Section 232, which gives the president the authority to adjust imports when they threaten national security.
A unified framework
Together, Pax Silica, FORGE and Project Vault represent three different levels within one and the same strategy.
Pax Silica unites Western allies around a shared commitment to technological leadership in AI, semiconductors and advanced industry. FORGE is a political framework for trade, investment and access to critical minerals among allies. Project Vault is purely national, a US stockpile programme to protect its own industry against supply disruptions. The tariff regime the Trump administration has put in place underpins all three.
The plurilateral agreement and the price floor (Agreement on Trade and Critical Minerals) is a legally binding extension of the FORGE framework, and this has caused confusion.
The strength of the design of the American mineral strategy lies in the connections between its parts: a political framework among allies, a Western mineral market, a national mineral reserve as a safety net, and tariffs that regulate the market.
Of great significance for Norway
Norway commands some of the world's largest mineral resources, including Europe's largest deposit of rare earth elements, and has a unique financial capacity through the Oil Fund to extract them without external capital. That combination places Norway at the centre of the conflict between the US and the EU: Washington has explicitly pointed to Norway's resources and sovereign wealth as decisive for Western mineral cooperation, while the EU is seeking control over the same projects through the Critical Raw Materials Act.
Norway joined FORGE in July 2026, after five months and minor changes to the guidelines.
A detailed account of how the developments affect Norway can be found in the Mineral Petition.
Other Critical Minerals Strategies
Critical Minerals in Charts
SOURCES
I – US Strategy and Initiatives
.S. Department of State – 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial
U.S. Department of State – Norway Joins Pax Silica Initiative
Office of the United States Trade Representative – Ambassador Greer Issues Statement on Launch of Critical Minerals Negotiations
Office of the United States Trade Representative – Ambassador Jamieson Greer Announces Critical Minerals Cooperation with the European Union and Japan
European Commission, United States, Japan – Joint Press Statement, 4 February 2026
U.S. Department of the Treasury – Secretary Bessent Convenes Finance Ministerial on Securing Critical Minerals Supply Chains
II – Project Vault and Strategic Reserves
Export-Import Bank of the United States – Project Vault and the U.S. Strategic Critical Mineral Reserve
III – Legal Basis: Proclamation 11001 and Trade Authorities
The White House – Proclamation 11001: Adjusting Imports of Processed Critical Minerals and Their Derivative Products, 14 January 2026
The White House – Fact Sheet: Proclamation 11001
U.S. GovInfo – Proclamation 11001 (DCPD-202600025)
U.S. Federal Register – Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals
Council on Foreign Relations – A Guide to Trump's Section 232 Tariffs
EveryCRSReport – Section 232 Investigations: Overview and Issues for Congress
Brownstein – Supreme Court Restricts Presidential Tariff Authority Under IEEPA
White & Case – President Trump Orders Critical Minerals Trade Negotiations in Section 232 Action
IV – China's Mineral Position
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies – China's Rare Earth Dominance and Policy Responses
The New York Times – China Halts Critical Exports as Trade War Intensifies
V – The Ukraine Agreement
Reuters – US and Ukraine Sign Minerals Deal
CSIS – What to Know About the Signed U.S.–Ukraine Minerals Deal
VI – Norway
Regjeringen (Norwegian Government) – Prime Minister Støre's Congratulatory Letter to Donald Trump
U.S. Department of State (Secretary Rubio on X) – Partnership with Norway
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