FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) is the U.S.-led successor to the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP). FORGE is framed as a broader, action-oriented platform to coordinate partners at both policy and project levels (and explicitly to work closely with private-sector initiatives such as Pax Silica). By contrast, the MSP was a multilateral forum focused on coordinating responsible investment and policy to diversify critical‑minerals supply chains; FORGE builds on MSP but emphasizes more direct project-level collaboration and a governance role for a wider set of trade and resilience tools announced at the ministerial.
Pax Silica is a U.S.-led multilateral initiative launched in December 2025 to secure ‘‘silicon’’/AI-era supply chains — spanning critical minerals, semiconductors, compute, and related infrastructure. Its role is to align trusted countries and private firms to mobilize investment, coordinate incentives and standards, and help finance/co‑develop projects across mining, refining/processing, manufacturing, and recycling to reduce reliance on single-source suppliers. In the ministerial, U.S. officials said Pax Silica will help lead private‑sector investment efforts in mining, refining, end‑use and recycling.
Project Vault is EXIM’s initiative to create a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. EXIM’s Board approved a Direct Loan of up to $10 billion to seed that reserve; the financing is intended to support purchase, stockpiling, and related domestic production/processing capacity so U.S. manufacturers have a buffer against supply shocks and to incent domestic and allied upstream investments.
Bilateral critical‑minerals frameworks and MOUs are political and commercial commitments that create pathways for cooperation (information sharing, permitting assistance, technical cooperation, offtake and financing facilitation) but are typically not full‑scale treaties. Practically they: (1) signal government support and can unlock government financing/letters of interest, (2) set processes for regulatory, trade or offtake coordination, and (3) lower transaction risk for private investors — without automatically creating binding trade or ownership rights unless converted into treaties or contracts.
The Orion Critical Minerals Consortium is a private‑led investment consortium (backed by DFC and other partners) that pools capital for upstream and processing projects worldwide. The Glencore MOU signed at the ministerial links Glencore and Orion on a potential acquisition of DRC assets; that MOU would facilitate U.S.‑aligned investment into Congolese copper/cobalt assets, encourage offtake and financing arrangements, and is framed as supporting the U.S.-DRC Strategic Partnership to secure reliable flows of copper and cobalt to the United States.
EXIM provides export‑credit style financing (large direct loans, guarantees, and letters of interest to underwrite transactions and stockpiles like Project Vault); the DOE Loan Programs Office issues project loans and conditional commitments for U.S. domestic energy/minerals projects (term loans, conditional commitments tied to technical/financial milestones); and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) offers development‑finance equity, loans, guarantees, and programmatic investments abroad to mobilize private capital in emerging markets. Each has different legal mandates, risk appetites, and conditionality: EXIM focuses on export/strategic industrial policy support, DOE on U.S. domestic energy/industrial projects with programmatic criteria, and DFC on politically‑sensitive overseas investments with development and commercial return conditions.
The USTR‑Mexico Action Plan is a bilateral trade policy roadmap (announced at the ministerial) to coordinate trade rules and mechanisms to mitigate critical‑minerals supply‑chain vulnerabilities; it sets a 60‑day work plan to develop coordinated measures (e.g., trade policy, standards, possible price‑support mechanisms). Similar trilateral/ plurilateral Action Plans with the EU and Japan are intended to align tariffs, standards, offtake/subsidy tools and other trade measures to reduce vulnerability and coordinate responses (e.g., exploring price floors, standards‑based markets or subsidy coordination) — but details and binding forms remain to be negotiated.