Pakistan’s push to leverage rare earths, copper-gold, and hydrocarbons under Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir has accelerated talks with Washington for investment and security cooperation around deposits in Balochistan, including the Reko Diq belt, amid fresh concerns that extraction without social safeguards could inflame insurgency-hit areas such as Balochistan and Waziristan and entangle the United States in Afghanistan‑style, open‑ended instability. Recent regional reporting indicates U.S. interest in “critical minerals” deals has intensified since mid‑August 2025 alongside broader strategic messaging about supply‑chain security, even as local resistance to displacement and environmental harm persists and China’s footprint via CPEC complicates alignments. Critics say this pattern mirrors a wider history in which U.S. demand for critical minerals fuels externalized harms: in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the 3TG trade (tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold) has repeatedly financed armed groups despite compliance regimes, with sanctions and due‑diligence laws struggling to curb trafficking; in Myanmar and the Central African Republic, gold and tin routes have fed conflict economies; and in Afghanistan, artisanal gold and lapis sectors were long captured by militias—examples activists cite to warn that unchecked U.S. pursuit of strategic minerals often leaves producing communities with insecurity, corruption, and few tangible benefits.