India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr S Jaishankar, walked into the US State Department on February 4, carrying something neither New Delhi nor Washington could have imagined six months ago. India and the US had just buried the hatchet on tariffs—cutting duties from 50 per cent to 18 per cent. Now, just as the dust settled on that bitter trade war, the EAM found himself at the head table of America’s first Critical Minerals Ministerial.

The timing was no accident. The symbolism was unmissable.

For the better part of a year, India-US ties had been in the deep freeze. Trump’s tariff assault in August 2025 had bloodied Indian exporters. The mood in New Delhi had turned sour. Yet something shifted in late January. Trump and Modi talked. A deal came together. And suddenly, India wasn’t just welcome at America’s minerals table. It was essential.

This is the nub of what Jaishankar’s visit signals. India is no longer a buyer waiting in line for critical minerals. It has become something far more valuable: a gatekeeper in the global supply chains that will define the next decade.

Why does this matter? Because China sits on a processing monopoly that is slowly strangling the West. Beijing refines more than half of the world’s cobalt, and the same for lithium. These minerals power everything—renewable energy, semiconductors, the batteries in electric vehicles, the chips inside your phone. If you control the refining, you control the supply. If you control the supply, you control leverage. China knows this. Washington has finally figured it out. And New Delhi has spent the last year positioning itself to exploit this realisation.India’s strategy began quietly in January 2025, when the government launched the National Critical Minerals Mission. The goal was straightforward: identify the 30 minerals critical to India’s own growth and........

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