As Iran War Tightens Global Supply Lines, Trump Rolls Out New Minerals and Energy Strategy

The Trump administration is putting $250 million into a new Pax Silica fund aimed at critical minerals, energy infrastructure, and semiconductor supply chains.

The State Department said the funding will support extraction, processing, and manufacturing tied to secure chip supply chains while helping pull in larger pools of private and allied capital. It also said the fund is intended to “catalyze trusted capital” from sovereign wealth and institutional investors backing supply chain security.

Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said the U.S. would administer the consortium, which is expected to draw from partners managing more than $1 trillion in combined assets. Early participants include SoftBank, Temasek, and Mubadala, as well as sovereign wealth funds from allied countries.

Helberg said the group already has projects lined up for review.

“We’re starting it as a coalition… we already have a list of projects that we’re going to review,” he said of planned joint investment decision.

Helberg tied the effort to the war with Iran, where shipping routes and energy flows were disrupted. The Strait of Hormuz blockade pushed the effort further into energy infrastructure and logistics planning. That is the kind of disruption this fund is trying to get ahead of. Ports, logistics corridors, communications networks, and power systems are now being treated as part of the same strategic layer as semiconductors and AI systems.

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China’s dominance over rare earth processing remains a central pressure point. Export controls on key minerals and magnets have already spooked manufacturers that depend on those materials. New domestic and allied mineral supply chains will take years to come together, even with funding in place.

 The State Department describes Pax Silica as linking artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy, and minerals with partner nations.

“We believe that true economic security requires reducing excessive dependencies and forging new connections with reliable partners and suppliers committed to fair market practices.”

Helberg said the goal is to keep the “minerals, ports, corridors, factories and energy assets” behind supply chains in “trusted hands.” The administration is treating control over supply chains as leverage, not just commerce.

Officials are discussing a broader $4 trillion investment target tied to energy, minerals, and semiconductor infrastructure, though details remain limited. The scale does not match the underlying numbers, and the gap is hard to miss. Total global foreign direct investment last year was about $1.6 trillion, making a $4 trillion target an aggressive leap by comparison. The administration has not explained how that level of capital would be assembled.

New mining capacity, refining operations, and semiconductor infrastructure projects will take years to build, even with funding and political alignment in place. Washington is now treating minerals, ports, power, and chipmaking capacity as strategic assets. That does not guarantee the money will come, but it makes clear where this is going.