Jacob Helberg, the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, has assembled a coalition of 24 countries to reshape how the world's democracies compete for artificial intelligence dominance—and he's doing it with a strategy that prioritizes Silicon Valley's interests in ways that worry both international partners and watchdog groups.
In early May 2026, Helberg signed Norway onto his Pax Silica Declaration in the State Department's Treaty Room, marking the latest victory in a campaign to build what he calls a unified front against what he describes as Beijing's "systemic weaponization" of the global supply chain. The coalition now includes the European Union, Chile, Kazakhstan, and a growing roster of nations whose resources and manufacturing capacity matter to the future of AI chips and rare earth minerals. But the declaration remains largely symbolic. It commits signers to nothing concrete—no specific manufacturing targets, no binding research agreements, no enforceable standards.
Helberg's pitch is straightforward: link arms with the U.S. now or lose control of tech infrastructure to adversaries. "Technology is the whole game," he says. "Whoever leads the world technologically will likely also lead economically and militarily." He envisions Pax Silica as a platform for joint research, development, and manufacturing projects that would rival China's Belt and Road initiative.
The Tech Sector's Outsized Influence
Helberg's rise reflects a broader consolidation of power among tech executives in the Trump administration. Rick Claypool, a research director at the left-leaning nonprofit Public Citizen, describes the dynamic bluntly: "There's a synergy between this fully unrestrained Trump White House and big tech and big tech billionaires who have real policy preferences in blocking AI regulation and the retreat from crypto and financial sector regulatory enforcement." He added, "The default position has become what's good for big tech billionaires is what's good for America."
Helberg's personal ties to Silicon Valley's inner circle run deep. He married venture capitalist Keith Rabois 8 years ago in 2018 in a ceremony officiated by Sam Altman and attended by major tech figures. Rabois is part of the so-called PayPal mafia, a network that includes David Sacks, now co-chair of Trump's President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and other influential tech investors. Helberg himself sold millions of dollars in tech company investments—including OpenAI, Palantir, Tesla, and Meta—in December 2025 and January 2026, according to a financial disclosure report accessed by POLITICO. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics said he "is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations," but the timing of those sales raises questions about the intersection of personal financial interest and public policy.
Helberg justifies the prominence of tech sector figures in government as a necessary correction. "For years, Washington's default was that anyone who actually understood technology was disqualified from governing it," he says. "So we got a government that regulated what it didn't understand and missed what it couldn't see—while Beijing fused its tech sector and its state into one weapon."
Pax Silica's Contested Vision
The initiative itself represents a significant rebranding of the Biden administration's Minerals Security Partnership. Where that program emphasized clean energy transition, community consultation, and ethical business operations, Pax Silica strips away those guardrails and focuses instead on mutual economic security and opposition to "non-market policies and practices." In May 2026, Helberg secured a deal with the Philippine government for a 4,000-acre economic security zone for AI-related manufacturing, though the agreement initially included a controversial clause applying U.S. common law rather than Philippine law.
When French tech entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand criticized this arrangement as "structurally neocolonial," Helberg responded on X with personal attacks, calling Bertrand an "ignorant loser." The exchange highlighted tensions between Helberg's vision and concerns from international partners about who actually benefits from these arrangements.
Some major democracies remain skeptical. France and Canada haven't joined. Saudi Arabia, despite signing a Strategic Artificial Intelligence Partnership with the U.S. last year, has stayed out. Eric Robinson, who served as director of the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital in the Biden administration, pointed to a fundamental contradiction: "You can't put a knife to the throat of NATO and then create Pax Silica at the same time." The Trump administration's tariffs and threats to acquire Greenland have made prospective members wary of committing to long-term partnerships.
A Washington-based diplomat summed up the skepticism: "The grouping seems mostly symbolic and there aren't any solid commitments linked to signing."
The Road Ahead
Helberg has traveled to more than 18 countries and met with leaders of more than 40 nations over the past year. By 2027, he wants to make it measurably impossible for Beijing to squeeze the tech supply chains of the U.S. and its partners. He's planning Pax Pass, a specialized cargo shipping platform for AI-critical goods, and seeking $50 million in congressional funding for development. He also wants to establish The Foundry School in partnership with Stanford University to train technologists in advanced manufacturing.
The scale of ambition is notable. Helberg says, "This grouping of countries will be to the AI age what the G7 was to the industrial age." Yet the initiative remains a work in progress—more aspiration than infrastructure, more tech-sector wish list than democratic consensus.
Why This Matters:
Pax Silica represents a fundamental shift in how the U.S. approaches global technology competition: through the lens of Silicon Valley's interests rather than through multilateral democratic institutions or community-centered development. The coalition prioritizes supply chain control and manufacturing dominance over the labor standards, environmental protections, and democratic input that characterized earlier international partnerships. When the Philippines negotiated out the U.S. common law clause—asserting its own sovereignty—Helberg's dismissive response suggested little patience for the kind of genuine partnership that sustainable international cooperation requires. The concentration of tech executive power in U.S. foreign policy, combined with the absence of binding commitments from Pax Silica members and the skepticism of major allies, raises questions about whether this approach will actually build the stable, rules-based international order that democratic nations need—or whether it will deepen fractures and resentment among partners who feel pressured to serve U.S. tech interests rather than their own citizens' needs.