Technological sovereignty, national security and the competitiveness of Italy’s industrial system share a common denominator: the strategic partnership between Italy and the United States on critical minerals and rare earths.
That is the view of Cinzia Pellegrino, a senator from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and a member of the Senate’s European Affairs Committee. Speaking to Formiche.net, she offered a wide-ranging assessment of Pax Silica, the energy strategies of Atlantic allies and the steps taken by the Meloni government in this field.
From the Belt and Road to Washington. The starting point is the agreement signed in Washington by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which Pellegrino sees as a fundamental pillar of this strategy.
- “The meeting established Italy’s central role in the new multilateral alliance of 55 nations aimed at breaking the near-monopoly of the People’s Republic of China over global supply chains,” she said.
- “For Italy, Europe’s second-largest manufacturing economy and the world’s fourth-largest exporting power, having stable and secure access to these strategic raw materials at sustainable costs is a vital precondition for protecting more than €560 billion in industrial production that directly depends on them.”
- “This cooperation demonstrates the change brought about by the Meloni government: we have moved from the ideological subordination of the ‘Belt and Road’ under left-wing governments to a posture of international dignity, one that protects the national interest and builds equal industrial partnerships with our historic Western allies.”
The Pax Silica connection. In this sense, strengthening the Rome-Washington axis is a key component of Pax Silica, the Western strategy aimed at breaking China’s technological and industrial dominance. Beijing today controls almost the entire market for rare earths and critical raw materials, Pellegrino argued, giving it a near-monopoly position that the Chinese government has not hesitated to use as a geopolitical weapon, including by restricting exports of rare metals such as gallium and germanium in ways that affect Western industries.
- “To put an end to this blackmail and secure our production chains, G7 countries have set the goal of reducing dependence on individual non-allied suppliers for rare earths to below 60% by 2030, and then to 50%,” she said.
- “In this contest, Italy plays a leading role, actively participating in the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) and promoting a vision based on economic realism.”
Critical minerals meet the Green Deal. But there is another dimension to the issue. Pellegrino also points to the work carried out by her party and connects the critical-minerals debate with one of the most contentious issues in European industrial policy: the Green Deal.
- “Brothers of Italy, secondly, strongly opposes the ideological environmentalism of the left, which is responsible for pushing ultra-green regulations — such as the European ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2035 — that would ultimately have handed the entire automotive industrial supply chain over to China’s electric monopoly,” she said.
- “By contrast, the Meloni government’s approach is based on technological neutrality: we must diversify supplies, sustainably unlock domestic mining and promote recycling, in order to avoid replacing our previous dependence on Russian gas with a new and far more dangerous technological subordination to Beijing.”
- “This strategy of sovereignty and national dignity ultimately connects with the spirit of the Mattei Plan for Africa, a non-predatory and equal model of cooperation that does not seek to plunder the resources of African partners, but invests locally to create development and industrial refining capacity, offering these nations a genuine alternative for growth to Chinese exploitation.”
The broader Italy-US relationship. Finally, Pellegrino places the critical-minerals agreement within the broader trajectory of relations between Italy and the United States.
- “With the Meloni government, Italy has abandoned the diplomatic ambiguity of the Conte-Di Maio governments, which in 2019 signed the Memorandum on the Belt and Road, subordinating our economy to Chinese interests and accumulating a dramatic trade deficit,” she said.
The bottom line: “Cooperation on critical raw materials and rare earths represents the latest and most strategic element of a bilateral partnership that brings Italy and the United States together on highly advanced technology issues,” Sen. Pellegrino said.
- “The relationship between Rome and Washington emerges strengthened from this step and represents an essential strategy for building the West’s economic security.”
