A proposed clause in a Philippine development contract, which would have applied U.S. common law instead of national law, reveals the true nature of the new Pax Silica initiative. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg, a key figure in the Trump administration's drive for U.S. technological dominance, champions this coalition. He has secured 24 country members, including the European Union and mineral powerhouses Chile and Kazakhstan, to sign the Pax Silica Declaration.
Helberg’s pitch to foreign governments is stark: link arms with the U.S. to oppose Beijing’s “systemic weaponization” of the global supply chain. Failure to do so, he warns, risks losing control of tech infrastructure to “people who don’t have our best interests at heart.” He asserts, “Technology is the whole game. Whoever leads the world technologically will likely also lead economically and militarily.” While currently more symbolic, Helberg intends for the declaration to become a platform for joint research, development, manufacturing, and infrastructure investment, directly rivaling China’s Belt and Road initiative.
Elite Architects of a New Order
Helberg’s rapid ascent reflects a broader trend: the increasing influence of tech executives within the Trump administration. Other powerful tech figures include former White House senior policy adviser for AI Sriram Krishnan and David Sacks, who serves as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Rick Claypool, a research director at the left-leaning nonprofit Public Citizen, observed a “synergy between this fully unrestrained Trump White House and big tech and big tech billionaires who have real policy preferences.” He added that “The default position has become what’s good for big tech billionaires is what’s good for America.”
Helberg himself married into the tech titan class 8 years ago, wedding venture capitalist Keith Rabois, a member of the influential PayPal mafia. Helberg also held personal financial stakes, selling millions of dollars of investments in major tech companies like OpenAI, Palantir, Tesla, and Meta in December 2025 and January 2026. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics stated Helberg “is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.” He argues Washington’s previous arms-length relationship with Silicon Valley created a “translation gap,” hindering U.S. competitiveness against Beijing, which “fused its tech sector and its state into one weapon.”
Born 37 years ago in a Parisian suburb, Helberg spent formative years in Europe, later moving to the U.S. at 18 in 2008. He describes feeling like an outsider in Europe, identifying more with America. He has criticized Europe’s politics and bureaucracy, calling the European Union’s a “Caligulan bureaucracy” and describing a “civilizational emergency” in Europe over its failure to embrace digital technology. A friend noted that Helberg believes Europe needs a “harsher stance on issues like immigration,” a perspective that underscores his broader civilizational concerns.
Sovereignty Under Siege
Helberg and his allies 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. This forum has become a “default meeting place for leaders in tech and Capitol Hill,” according to co-founder Delian Asparouhov, leading to backroom conversations that shaped nuclear and energy policies, and facilitated fundraising rounds. Helberg later joined Palantir 3 years ago as a senior adviser to CEO Alex Karp, a company critics suggest is trying to sell new technologies to the Pentagon.
Pax Silica, which Helberg assumed leadership of in October 2025, is a re-invention of the Biden administration’s Minerals Security Partnership. It sheds the previous emphasis on clean energy transition and community consultation, focusing instead on mutual economic security and cooperation against “non-market policies and practices.” Helberg envisions this grouping as “to the AI age what the G7 was to the industrial age,” explicitly positioning it as a new supranational economic bloc. In May, he secured a deal with the Philippine government for a 4,000-acre economic security zone for AI-related manufacturing, though the controversial U.S. common law clause was rejected by Manila.
French tech entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand called Pax Silica “structurally neocolonial” over this proposed clause. When another critic described Manila’s rejection as Filipinos “rising up against Pax Silica,” Helberg dismissed them as “failed-commentators-turned-paid-for-mouthpieces.” The initiative still lacks major members like France and Canada, with critics like Eric Robinson, a former Defense Department official, warning, “You can’t put a knife to the throat of NATO and then create Pax Silica at the same time.” Beijing’s state media, The Global Times, reported 9 months ago that Pax Silica aims at decoupling with China in the semiconductor supply chain, which would raise costs for chips and other materials.
Helberg plans to build out Pax Pass, a specialized cargo shipping platform, and create The Foundry School with Stanford University to train technologists. He also seeks to expand a network of economic security zones, modeled on the Philippine development, aiming to make Beijing’s leverage over tech supply chains measurably untrue by 2027. He wants Congress to provide an initial $50 million in development costs for these ambitious projects.