US Secretary of State Marco Rubio highlighted the importance of economic security through critical minerals and the need for allies to come together not only for rectifying the mistakes of past but to pool in collective talent and innovation to ensure diversity and affordability in supply chains.

He made the remarks during the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial being hosted by the United States.

Rubio said, “We are gathered here today as the first step to rectify the mistake, bring together our collective talent and innovation”.

The US Secretary of State underlined how mining came to be seen as unglamorous with respect to designing computers. “As we embraced what was new and glamorous, we outsourced what seemed old and unfashionable… and one day we realized we had outsourced our economic security and our very future. We were at the mercy of whoever controlled the supply chains for these minerals”

He called it an international situation that needs multilateral solutions.

Rubio highlighted the importance of critical minerals and said, “They power our infrastructure, our industry and our national defense. Our goal is to have a global supply chain which is enduring and available to everyone, every nation at an affordable price. That is the top priority for this administration”.

He spoke about the importance to critical minerals in US domestic policy, noting President Trump’s stance of economic security being national security. He recalled the Pax Silica partnership launched by the US last year.
He mentioned how the discovery of critical minerals in the 1949 helped usher in the jet age, space age and the computer age.

Rubio recalled the meeting by Henry Kissinger fifty years ago when the world was churning under global crisis of energy supplies and market disruptions, and “access to oil became a tool of political pressure”.
He said, “Today we return 50 years later in the hopes of enhancing bilateral critical minerals framework agreement to the same end on that front”.

He highlighted the diverse roles which the countries gathered can play- from exercising purchasing power by being consumers to refining minerals if they do not have access to them “to build a more resilient and diverse global market”.

Rubio said that while the initiative started with the United States, he called for it to be an international global initiative where like-minded countries see a diverse supply of critical minerals and secure and resilient supply chains across the world for the economies to prosper, “without having these leveraged against us or any disruption that would undermine collective economic security”.

Earlier while delivering the opening remarks, US Vice President JD Vance stressed upon the importance of critical minerals, and said, “There is no realer thing than oil- and I would add to that– there is no realer thing than critical minerals”, Vance said.

In his remarks, the US VP noted how this initiative is where the alliance can help one another and gave a call for making prices more predictable to support supply chains and underlined the importance of confronting problems together.

The United States is hosting the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington DC, bringing together delegations from over 50 countries to advance collaboration on securing and diversifying global critical mineral supply chains, according to a prior notice issued by the Office of the Spokesperson of the US State Department.

Prior to the Ministerial, on Monday, US President Donald Trump announced Project Vault, a supply chain security initiative, which will create the US Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve–an independently governed public-private partnership designed to store essential raw materials at facilities across the country.

Rubio is chairing the ministerial, and the gathering is being described as a historic effort to build collective momentum for cooperation to secure critical minerals essential to technological innovation, economic growth, and national security.