The C5+1 Critical Minerals Dialogue opened in Astana on 10 June alongside the Astana Mining and Metallurgy Congress, which runs on 11 and 12 June at the Hilton Astana. US Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg is taking part. Kazakhstan’s stated goal is to move the framework agreements reached at the November 2025 C5+1 summit in Washington toward concrete investment decisions.
The agenda leans on copper as a strategic metal for the energy transition, along with processing, supply chains, tax terms and transport, the conditions investors usually want settled before money moves. The Trump administration has been mobilising the US Export-Import Bank and the Development Finance Corporation to back projects in Central Asian mining, part of a push for supply chains that do not run through China.
On the sidelines, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met the US Special Envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor, and called the minerals dialogue an important platform for cooperation. Kazakhstan holds reserves of rare earths, copper, lithium, tungsten and tantalum, materials the US Department of Commerce lists as critical.
The aim in Astana is to turn last year’s framework deals into actual mines and plants.
The setting carries its own message. The same congress floor hosts company stands from the United States, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Germany and China, including the Chinese machinery maker XCMG. Washington is courting Kazakhstan’s minerals in a hall it shares with the competitor it is trying to displace.