Paraguay–United States Strategic Framework for Critical Minerals Supply Chain Cooperation (FORGE founding bilateral)

Mechanism

The Paraguay–US Critical Minerals Framework was signed on 4 February 2026 at the inaugural FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington DC, where the United States signed eleven bilateral frameworks and MOUs with partner governments in a single signing ceremony hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio alongside Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The framework commits both parties to cooperation across the full critical minerals supply chain: geological exploration and mapping, mining, processing, refining, value-added manufacturing, and development of secure supply-chain finance pathways. The US government is supporting FORGE-cohort projects through more than USD 30 billion in EXIM, DFC, and USAID financing letters of interest mobilised in the six months prior to the Ministerial — instruments specifically structured to provide capital access to FORGE bilateral partners.

Paraguay is among the penultimate entries in the cohort (with Ecuador the final sibling); together they close the FORGE founding architecture at 11/11 bilateral instruments.

Paraguay's critical minerals profile

Paraguay's strategic relevance in the global critical-minerals supply chain is less well-documented than the Andean lithium-triangle (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile) or African cobalt-copper belt, but rests on three distinct geological and geopolitical pillars:

1. Alkaline carbonatite complexes. Paraguay hosts a series of Cretaceous-age alkaline-carbonatite intrusives in the eastern Precambrian basement (Amambay and Concepción departments), including the Cerro Curuzú and Cerro Sarambí carbonatites, which are associated with titanium-bearing minerals (ilmenite, perovskite) and rare-earth element (REE) enrichment in the Nb-Ta-REE carbonatite family. These represent an early-stage but structurally coherent REE + Ti exploration target on the under-explored Precambrian shield, distinct from the Argentine, Brazilian, and Peruvian REE deposits already covered in the register.

2. Plata Basin lithium-triangle hinterland. While Paraguay itself does not host world-class brine salar deposits, it occupies the drainage basin and transport-corridor position for lithium development in northwestern Argentina and Bolivia. Infrastructure and logistical positioning (Paraguay River waterway, Asunción-Santos corridor), combined with the country's highly competitive fiscal-incentive architecture (Ley 7547 maquila + Ley 7548 fiscal-incentive-regime, both filed September 2025), makes Paraguay a potential lithium-value-chain processing and logistics hub intermediary — a role distinct from upstream extraction but directly material to FORGE-mandated supply-chain diversification.

3. Paso Yobai gold-lithium district. Eastern Paraguay (Guairá department) hosts the Paso Yobai gold district, one of South America's artisanal gold mining concentrations, with associated spodumene-pegmatite lithium mineralisation in the Precambrian basement. While early-stage, these prospects represent the first documented hard-rock lithium exploration target in a country historically absent from critical-minerals investment pipelines.

Geopolitical architecture

The Trump-Peña strategic alignment provides the bilateral's geopolitical scaffolding. President Santiago Peña (elected August 2023, Partido Colorado) has maintained Paraguay's consistent pro-US/pro-Taiwan foreign policy line — Paraguay is one of two Latin American jurisdictions that formally recognises Taiwan (the other being Guatemala), giving the US-PY strategic relationship an additional security-alignment dimension that supplements the minerals-cooperation content of the framework itself.

This Taiwan-recognition nexus positions the bilateral as simultaneously a critical-minerals supply-chain instrument and a component of the broader US Indo-Pacific alliance-management strategy in the Western Hemisphere — a structural characteristic it shares with no other Feb-2026 FORGE cohort member.

The Milei (Argentina) – Peña (Paraguay) axis creates a sub-regional alignment dynamic: two right-of-centre reform governments each with FORGE frameworks in place and complementary comparative advantages (Argentina: Tier-1 lithium reserves, RIGI investment architecture; Paraguay: fiscal incentives, transit logistics, early-stage carbonatite prospects) that positions the Southern Cone sub-region for integrated supply-chain development under the FORGE umbrella.

Register coverage context

With Paraguay filed, the 2026-02-04 FORGE founding cohort stands at 10/11 on the register (only Ecuador remaining). The complete cohort comprises: Argentina, Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, UAE, UK, and Uzbekistan, plus the FORGE parent instrument. The February 4 Ministerial is the single most concentrated day of critical-minerals bilateral instrument signing in the register's history.

Downstream implications

• Paraguay's maquila regime (Ley 7547, September 2025) could become a downstream-processing vehicle for US-partnered critical-minerals value-addition — the framework creates an institutional channel for EXIM/DFC financing for such projects that did not exist pre-FORGE.
• Cerro Curuzú and Cerro Sarambí carbonatite exploration would require significant capital and technical survey investment before commercial viability is established; the DFC Project Vault financing pathway (filed separately) is the primary capital mechanism for early-stage FORGE-partner mineral development.
• Taiwan-recognition implications: US supply-chain partnerships with Paraguay could extend to strategic-technology components (semiconductors, advanced electronics) that link to the FORGE minerals agenda — Paraguay's Ley 7546 electronics national policy creates the domestic-industry vehicle for such extension.

Open questions

• No specific critical mineral has been publicly designated as the bilateral's primary cooperation target — the framework language mirrors the generic FORGE architecture. Actual project-level commitments would materialise through EXIM/DFC project-specific agreements.
• Whether Paraguay's carbonatite prospects can support commercial-scale REE or titanium extraction requires further geological assessment — no JORC-compliant resource estimate has been published as of filing date.
• Full framework text has not been publicly released; the State Department fact sheet provides only a high-level characterisation consistent with all 11 FORGE bilaterals.