Jacob Helberg, the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, has assembled a 24-nation coalition to counter Beijing's control over critical technologies and mineral supplies that underpin artificial intelligence development. In early May 2026, Helberg signed Norway onto his Pax Silica Declaration in a ceremony at the State Department's Treaty Room, adding it to a growing list of allies including the European Union, Chile, and Kazakhstan.
The initiative represents a fundamental shift in how Washington approaches technological competition with China. Helberg's pitch to foreign governments is direct: link arms with the U.S. quickly to oppose what he calls Beijing's "systemic weaponization" of the global supply chain, or risk losing control of tech infrastructure to adversaries. "Technology is the whole game," Helberg says. "Whoever leads the world technologically will likely also lead economically and militarily."
The Strategic Pivot
Pax Silica is currently more symbolic than substantive—signers face no specific deliverables—but Helberg envisions it as a platform for joint research, development, manufacturing, and infrastructure investment projects intended to rival China's Belt and Road initiative. The declaration strips away the Biden administration's Minerals Security Partnership emphasis on clean energy transition and community consultation, instead focusing sharply on mutual economic security and cooperation against "non-market policies and practices."
Beijing has weaponized its dominance in rare earth minerals through export restrictions that have starved U.S. defense and civilian manufacturing of essential materials. Helberg's stated goal is to ensure supply chains deliver reliable inputs at market prices, not at whatever cost Beijing decides to impose during a crisis. "This grouping of countries will be to the AI age what the G7 was to the industrial age," he says.
In May 2026, Helberg secured a deal with the Philippine government for a 4,000-acre economic security zone for AI-related manufacturing and pitched greater U.S. access to Guyana's bauxite reserves. Over the past year, he's traveled to more than 18 countries and met with the leaders of more than 40 nations. His rapid rise reflects the ascendancy of tech executives in key roles throughout the Trump administration. Besides Helberg, other tech figures with influence in the White House include recently departed White House senior policy adviser for AI Sriram Krishnan and David Sacks, who served as President Donald Trump's special adviser on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency and is now co-chair of his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Rick Claypool, a research director at the left-leaning nonprofit Public Citizen, criticized the arrangement, saying, "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 response to such criticism has been sharp. When French tech entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand called Pax Silica "structurally neocolonial" over a proposed clause in the Philippine development contract that would apply U.S. common law rather than Philippine law, Helberg replied on X that Bertrand had an "ignorant loser mentality."
Helberg's Path to Power
Helberg was born in 1989 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a western Parisian suburb, within hours of the fall of the Berlin Wall. His family smuggled American food into France before Amazon existed and obtained a satellite dish to receive American TV against French media quotas on American movies. After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, he became a target of anti-Americanism among French teachers and classmates but often defended the Bush administration, landing in the principal's office more than once.
He moved to the U.S. at 18 in 2008 to attend The George Washington University, where he graduated with a degree in international relations. After a brief detour to study law at Sciences Po Law School in Paris, he joined his sister in California and connected with Silicon Valley. By 2016, he was leading Google's global search policy team, where he says he learned tech foreign diplomacy under a "take nothing down unless it's illegal" policy.
Helberg married venture capitalist Keith Rabois 8 years ago in a ceremony officiated by OpenAI's leadership and attended by Silicon Valley elite. Rabois is a member of the so-called PayPal mafia, a grouping of early tech investors that included David Sacks, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel. Helberg has also had personal financial skin in the game. A 70-page financial transaction disclosure report accessed by POLITICO showed he sold millions of dollars of investments in tech companies including OpenAI, Palantir, Tesla, and Meta in December 2025 and January 2026. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics said Helberg "is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations."
Helberg left Google 6 years ago after what he called "militant" staff protests against Project Maven and an abortive effort to re-enter the Chinese market. Over the next three years, he sharpened his credentials on tech and China's national security threat as a senior advisor at the Stanford University Center on Geopolitics and Technology and co-chair of the Brookings Institution China Strategy Working Group. 4 years ago, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appointed him to a two-year term on the congressionally funded U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Some fellow commissioners bristled at what they saw as Helberg's relative lack of knowledge and experience on China issues and his emphasis on tech sector approaches rather than the commission's traditional focus on trade issues. One person familiar with his tenure said, "From the beginning, it was, 'You people don't know anything about tech. I am here to teach you about tech, and pretty much to represent tech.'" Another said, "There was a point when he said, 'We're going to war with China.' But it wasn't some dispassionate military analysis. It struck me as something that was in line with particular tech industry interests—companies like Palantir—that were trying to sell new technologies to the Pentagon." Michael Wessel, who served on the commission from 2001 to 2024, defended Helberg, saying, "No other commissioner had the depth of knowledge and awareness of the industry realities on these issues."
Helberg and his allies also launched the Hill & Valley Forum 4 years ago, a gathering of tech executives, lawmakers, and administration officials focused on countering China's national security threats. Delian Asparouhov, a partner at Founders Fund and a Hill & Valley co-founder, said, "It's become like a default meeting place for leaders in tech and Capitol Hill." He said he knows of backroom conversations that turned into nuclear and energy-related policies and of several fundraising rounds that came together because of Hill & Valley.
The TikTok Campaign and Political Evolution
Helberg joined Palantir Technologies 3 years ago as senior adviser to CEO Alex Karp, whom he calls "a mentor." His roles at Palantir and on the commission helped launch his campaign to ban TikTok. From 2023 to 2024, he met with dozens of members of Congress to persuade them to pass legislation that would outlaw the app. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said his efforts were instrumental in the bipartisan legislation passed in 2024 that required TikTok's Beijing-based owner ByteDance to sell the app to a non-adversarial buyer or face a ban from U.S. app stores. "His engagement basically put the effort on steroids," Cammack said. Trump delayed the ban from taking effect five times last year while a deal was negotiated to divest the app to American owners.
Helberg now says, "I am MAGA all the way." He says, "Covid made me a Republican. October 7 made me an unflinching supporter of this president." He says Trump's response to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and his own sense of persecution as an observant and faithful Jew shaped his politics. "I didn't abandon my principles—I followed them out the door," he says. By 2023, he and Rabois were throwing a fundraiser for then-GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. Helberg says almost everyone in his family is MAGA at this point.
Obstacles and Ambitions
Pax Silica has support on Capitol Hill. House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, warned at a July hearing that a Chinese victory in the AI development race could give Beijing capabilities with existential national security implications. He said, "I have no doubt they are waiting to release the next super Covid if that's what they could develop. Or a Missile Defense Mythos that can get around any Golden Dome that the United States of America has."
The initiative still lacks some major members, including France and Canada. Saudi Arabia has stayed out despite signing a Strategic Artificial Intelligence Partnership with the U.S. last year. Critics say the Trump administration's tariffs and threats to acquire Greenland have made some prospective members wary. Eric Robinson, an expert on international supply chains who served as director of the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital in the Biden administration, said, "You can't put a knife to the throat of NATO and then create Pax Silica at the same time." A Washington-based diplomat said the grouping seems mostly symbolic and that there aren't any solid commitments linked to signing.
Beijing's state media has also criticized the effort. The Global Times reported 9 months ago that Pax Silica aims at decoupling with China in the semiconductor supply chain and would raise costs for chips and other materials.
Helberg has ambitious plans for expansion. He wants by 2027 to make it measurably no longer true that Beijing can squeeze the tech supply chains of the U.S. and its partners at will. "And I want the receipts: signed agreements, groundbreakings, dollars deployed," he says. Over the coming year, he plans to build out Pax Pass, a specialized cargo shipping platform aimed at ensuring fast, secure transfer of goods critical to AI development, and he wants Congress to provide an initial $50 million in development costs. He also plans to work with Stanford University to create The Foundry School, a training ground for Pax Silica member technologists in advanced manufacturing, and to expand a network of economic security zones modeled on the development in the Philippines. "We are just in the infancy days of the AI revolution," he says.
Why This Matters:
Helberg's ascendancy signals a fundamental realignment in how the Trump administration approaches technological competition. Rather than relying on traditional diplomatic channels or multilateral institutions, the administration is building coalitions around specific economic and security interests—a model that prioritizes direct bilateral advantage over consensus-building. The Pax Silica initiative reflects genuine national security concerns about supply chain vulnerability, particularly as China has weaponized rare earth mineral exports and dominates semiconductor manufacturing. However, the initiative's current lack of binding commitments and its exclusion of key allies like France and Canada raises questions about whether symbolic alignment translates into meaningful supply chain resilience. Helberg's aggressive pursuit of deals—including the controversial common law clause in the Philippine agreement—demonstrates a willingness to push hard on terms, though this approach has already generated friction with potential coalition members. The $50 million Congressional request for Pax Pass and other infrastructure investments will test whether lawmakers view supply chain security as worth the fiscal commitment. Most significantly, the prominence of tech sector figures in shaping foreign policy raises questions about whether decisions are driven by national interest or by the policy preferences of the companies and executives they've worked for and continue to have financial ties to.