September 8, 2025 – Islamabad. US Strategic Metals (USSM), a Missouri-based company specializing in the production and recycling of critical minerals, will today sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Pakistan Army’s construction arm, the Frontier Works Organization (FWO), at the Prime Minister’s House.
USSM focuses on minerals the US Department of Energy
designates as vital for advanced manufacturing and energy production. Speaking
on the occasion, Natalie Baker, the US Chargé d’Affaires in Islamabad, noted:
“The Trump administration has made the forging of such deals a key priority
given the importance of critical mineral resources to American security and
prosperity. We look forward to future agreements between US companies and their
counterparts in Pakistan’s mining and critical minerals sector.”
The agreement is unfolding against the backdrop of
intensifying great-power rivalry in South Asia. China, through its flagship
Belt and Road Initiative, has invested heavily in the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC), which includes the construction of a second deep-sea port at
Gwadar and a network of highways linking it to Pakistan’s interior.
Both Washington and Beijing see Pakistan as strategically
indispensable—echoing smaller states such as Guyana that have become arenas of
overlapping influence. For both powers, the Pakistan Army has emerged as the
partner of choice, a dynamic that has further entrenched military authority in
Pakistan’s political landscape.
Domestically, this alignment has come at a cost. The
country’s most popular political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by
former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has been sidelined. Khan remains incarcerated
under charges widely criticized as politically motivated, while the Army Chief is seen as the central decision-maker. Civilian politics, critics
argue, has been reduced to the margins.
The younger population, meanwhile, is restless, frustrated by
corruption, elite capture, and shrinking space for free expression. Although
Pakistan has so far avoided the scale of unrest witnessed in Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, Indonesia, and, most recently, Nepal, the memory of the May 9, 2023, protests, triggered by Khan’s arrest, still looms large. Then, as now, the army
contained the upheaval through arrests and suppression.
Today’s coalition government, widely perceived as a military arrangement, has weathered crises ranging from economic shocks to devastating floods that killed thousands. Yet with thousands of opposition activists still behind bars and political freedoms tightly constrained, the stakes for Pakistan’s stability remain high for its people, its neighbors, and the rival global powers vying for influence.
https://pk.usembassy.gov/u-s-strategic-metals-signs-mou-on-critical-minerals-in-pakistan/
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