25/09/2025
Pakistan’s $500m Minerals Pact With US Draws Criticism Over Resource Exploitation.
On September 8, Pakistan has inked a $500 million deal with United States Strategic Metals (USSM) to supply rare earths and critical minerals, in partnership with the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), a military-run conglomerate. According to Al Jazeera, the agreement signed in the presence of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir will allow immediate exports of copper, antimony, tungsten, gold and other strategic minerals to the United States.
But the deal has triggered backlash. Critics argue it represents yet another case of Pakistan’s military and civil elites, dominated by Punjab’s establishment, selling off the resources of marginalized regions such as Balochistan, Pashtunland and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Analysts point out that these mineral-rich areas are not ordinary regions but conflict zones. Balochistan is in the grip of a severe insurgency, with Baloch fighters seeking freedom from Pakistan, while Pashtun areas are hit by a new wave of terrorism. Many local voices insist that this “terrorism” is in fact state-controlled, feeding the military establishment’s war economy that has earned billions in Western aid.
For local Pashtun and Baloch communities, long deprived of their share in resource wealth, the minerals pact is seen as the continuation of a historic plunder disguised as “strategic cooperation” with Washington.
