The Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE) was formally launched at the 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington, D.C., bringing together representatives from 54 countries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the initiative as the successor to the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), signaling a fundamental shift from the MSP's sustainability-focused approach to a results-oriented strategy explicitly designed to counter China's dominance in critical mineral supply chains.
The Scale of the Response
The financial commitment is unprecedented. The U.S. Government has mobilized over $30 billion in letters of interest, investments, loans, and other support for strategic minerals projects over the past six months. At the core of this effort is Project Vault — a $10 billion domestic strategic minerals reserve financed by the Export-Import Bank, designed to stockpile critical minerals and insulate U.S. manufacturers from supply disruptions and price manipulation.
In a single day at the Ministerial, the United States signed eleven new bilateral critical minerals frameworks and memorandums of understanding with Argentina, the Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan. These agreements create preferential trade corridors for critical mineral flows outside of Chinese-controlled supply chains.
Price Floors vs. Price Volatility
A central innovation of FORGE is its approach to price stability. Unlike the MSP, which focused primarily on environmental and governance standards, FORGE is exploring coordinated price floor mechanisms to protect Western mining investments from the market manipulation that has repeatedly undermined non-Chinese production. Vice President JD Vance articulated the challenge at the Ministerial, noting that consistent investment is "nearly impossible" so long as prices remain "erratic and unpredictable."
This represents a direct response to China's strategy of flooding markets with below-cost production to bankrupt Western competitors — a tactic most recently deployed in the lithium market, where Chinese oversupply drove prices down 80% from their 2022 peaks before stabilizing.
Domestic Research and Processing
Beyond the geopolitical coalition-building, the U.S. is investing heavily in domestic processing capacity. The Department of Energy announced a $69 million funding opportunity for innovative critical mineral processing technologies, while a $7.5 million award to Georgia Tech will support regional efforts to identify, recover, and reuse essential materials. These investments target the most vulnerable link in the supply chain: processing and refining, where China controls approximately 90% of global rare earth capacity.
For infrastructure stakeholders, FORGE represents the most significant supply chain de-risking effort since the CHIPS Act. Its success or failure will directly determine whether the AI data center buildout can secure the rare earths, lithium, cobalt, and other critical minerals required for servers, batteries, and power electronics at scale.