Led by the US, six countries—Israel, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the United Kingdom—came together last month to form an alliance aimed at protecting the supply of silicon that is vital to most tech applications, including AI. The effort aims to span all levels of the supply chain, from critical minerals, energy and advanced manufacturing to semiconductors, AI infrastructure and logistics.
“This is an operational document for a new economic security consensus,” Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Jakob Helberg told Reuters on Sunday.
A declaration signed by member countries said, “We encourage partnership efforts across strategic stacks of the global technology supply chain, including, but not limited to, software applications and platforms, frontier foundation models, information connectivity and network infrastructure, compute and semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, transportation logistics, minerals refining and processing, and energy.”
Although only seven countries in total have signed the declaration, Helberg indicated that both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will join the framework this coming week. The Trump administration is also engaged in discussions on this initiative with the European Union, Canada and Taiwan.
The program is called Pax Silica, based on Pax Romana, Latin for Roman peace. “Silica” is related to “silicon” in English, but that part is not Latin. The term describes a two-century-long period of relative political stability and economic prosperity in ancient Rome, as the empire, led by tyrannical emperors, doubled in size through remarkably bloody conquests, eventually encompassing a quarter of the world’s population at the time.
At the heart of this Pax Silica initiative is concern over an AI supply chain dominated by China.
China controls about 90% of the world’s supply of rare earths, a group of elements that are critical to manufacturing computer chips used in smartphones and AI systems.
Last year, China took advantage of this power by banning exports of rare earths in response to Trump’s tariff measures against Beijing. The retaliatory measures have hit the global tech industry hard and given China’s Xi Jinping an edge in trade talks with Trump.
In response, the United States has led the call to reduce dependence on Chinese critical minerals, something Treasury Secretary Scott Besant will also reportedly emphasize as he hosts top finance officials from the European Union, Canada, Japan, the UK, Australia, India, Mexico and South Korea this week.
While holding a near-monopoly on critical elements, China is also focused on rapidly increasing its overall global influence, especially when it comes to key infrastructure, technology and AI.
This effort began nearly a decade ago through the Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure investment project aimed at strengthening China’s trade ties and influence abroad. Last year, Chinese officials signaled a similar approach to artificial intelligence development as they called for the establishment of a global AI cooperation organization focused on open-source communities and joint research but under Chinese rules and values, centered in Shanghai.
“By aligning our economic security approaches, we can begin to basically unify to block China’s Belt and Road Initiative — which is really designed to enhance its export-based model — by denying China the ability to purchase ports, major highways, transportation and logistics corridors,” Helberg told POLITICO last month.
But defeating China in the global AI race is the Trump administration’s primary goal, but it is not its only goal.
The State Department’s economic security strategy is based on “four pillars,” Helberg said at a press conference after the Pax Silica summit: rebalancing trade, re-industrializing America, securing supply chains, and stabilizing conflict zones through economic solutions “from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East.”
The last of these pillars makes notable the two latest reported additions to the Pax Silica crew: Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the two most influential Arab nations. While the UAE normalized relations with Israel in 2020 under Trump’s Abraham Accords and the two now have trade ties, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has cooled these relations somewhat. And while Qatar is a key mediator in the Israel-Hamas talks, it has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel and any cordial relations were further strained after Israel bombed Qatar’s capital Doha in September 2025.
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