The Philippines Joins Washington’s Pax Silica |
Pacific Money | Economy | Southeast Asia
The Philippines Joins Washington’s Pax Silica
It’s clear what the United States is getting out of its new critical minerals initiative, but less obvious how Manila stands to gain from it.
U.S. Undersecretary of State Jacob Helberg convenes the first Pax Silica Summit,at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., Dec. 12, 2025.
On April 16, the Philippines officially joined the United States’ Pax Silica initiative. According to the State Department, under this framework, the two countries will establish a 4,000-acre industrial hub on the island of Luzon to “serve as a staging point for a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing.” This announcement, which is peppered with opaque corporate jargon, doesn’t provide a lot of clarity on key details. So what exactly does it mean?
The Pax Silica is an initiative launched in December 2025 by the U.S. State Department, which is intended to counter China’s influence over the world’s supply of critical minerals. Critical minerals are raw materials used to manufacture advanced electronics such as semiconductors, computer chips, and batteries. As the United States and China compete in key frontier technologies, securing long-term access to critical minerals has become an important geostrategic priority.
Currently, a lot of critical mineral supply chains run through China. In 2024, China produced 99 percent of the world’s gallium and 44 percent of its refined copper. What it does not produce domestically, it imports and has invested heavily in countries like Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to secure access to critical minerals like nickel and copper. The United States believes China’s position in these supply chains poses a strategic liability.
The goal of the Pax Silica is to form a network of like-minded countries that together will build resilient and secure global tech supply chains, including and especially the mining and refining of critical minerals, that operate independently of China. It’s an explicit acknowledgment that national security and economic security are tightly intertwined, an idea that for whatever reason has taken a while to gain traction in the United States.
Thirteen countries are signatories to the Pax Silica, including mineral-rich countries like Australia as well as those with mature high-tech manufacturing ecosystems like Singapore, Japan and South Korea. With the launch of this industrial hub, the Philippines, which has significant reserves of nickel, copper, chromite, and cobalt, is now being brought into the fold. The hub is expected to produce semiconductors and electronics, but securing access to critical minerals is an important part of the underlying........