Washington, Feb 5 (NationPress) India is set to become a pivotal player in the United States’ Pax Silica initiative and its overarching strategy for critical minerals, according to a senior US official. This statement underscores Washington's ambition to enhance collaboration with Indo-Pacific allies to secure and diversify global mineral supply chains.

“India is expected to officially join Pax Silica later this month,” stated Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg in an interview with IANS. This announcement coincides with Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosting a critical minerals ministerial attended by representatives from 50 nations, including India, which is being represented by External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar.

Helberg expressed enthusiasm about India's forthcoming participation in Pax Silica, emphasizing the initiative's strong appeal in India. He highlighted India's substantial technical expertise, noting that it is “likely the only country besides China that can match its breadth and depth of human capital.”

The US official remarked that India's involvement would foster greater collaboration between the two nations on projects that are “genuinely mutually beneficial and self-reinforcing.” This partnership could facilitate the acceleration of American reindustrialization while capitalizing on India's competitive advantages.

“The prosperity of everyday Americans is interconnected with the Indo-Pacific,” Helberg noted, emphasizing that by collaborating with allies in the region, the United States aims to secure dependable access to critical minerals through diversified and reliable supply chains, as well as transparent and fair markets.

He pointed out that Washington is engaging with Indo-Pacific nations to form supply chains “that are devoid of dependencies on unreliable single points of failure, market manipulation, price coercion, and abrupt disruptions.” This initiative is designed to avert industrial shutdowns and escalating costs that could jeopardize regional security and prosperity.

In response to inquiries about India's specific role in the critical minerals sector, Helberg noted that India already possesses considerable strengths. “I understand that India has substantial processing and refining capabilities,” he said, adding that this existing infrastructure could be utilized as part of a more profound collaboration between the two countries.

He contrasted India's current capabilities with what he described as a “warp speed effort” in the United States to enhance domestic processing and refining capacity, driven by coordinated initiatives across various US agencies, including commerce and trade-related departments.

Helberg indicated that the ministerial convenes nations that have entered into bilateral critical minerals memoranda of understanding with the United States, along with participants in Pax Silica and the Mineral Security Partnership.

He characterized the gathering as “the largest ministerial in the State Department’s history,” reflecting an increasing consensus that “economic security is indeed national security.”

Helberg argued that the current global supply chain model is “no longer adequate” and emphasized the need for measures to guarantee fair, transparent, and reliable access to mineral security.

He also highlighted the surging global demand spurred by what he termed the AI revolution, which has led to exceptional demand for minerals like cobalt, copper, and nickel, as well as products ranging from smartphones to data centers.

This rising demand presents opportunities for partner nations to achieve economic growth as supply chains become more geographically diverse.

In recent years, India and the United States have enhanced collaboration on critical and strategic minerals as part of a broader initiative to bolster supply chain resilience, support clean energy transitions, and mitigate vulnerabilities associated with concentrated global production.

Pax Silica focuses on downstream manufacturing and fabrication ecosystems, particularly in advanced technologies such as semiconductors, while the critical minerals ministerial centers on upstream mineral security and access across global supply chains.