US and SA government officials and mining CEOs met twice to discuss vital economic ties on technological collaboration.

South Africa and the US have begun a promising dialogue on jointly developing South Africa's critical minerals, many of them important for the US. The initiative could also help to ease the strained relations between Pretoria and Washington.

Senior government officials, business leaders, unionists and others from SA and the US held a closed meeting in Johannesburg this month, hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential Washington-based think-tank.

The US is scouring the world for critical minerals, trying to loosen China's tight grip on these minerals, which are vital for building many advanced technologies, including in renewable energy, weapons and digital systems.

The idea of the meeting was to seek concrete critical minerals projects that South Africa and the US could develop jointly, according to a mining executive who participated. SA's rich critical mineral reserves created "an opportunity ... and we can use that as a seed to mend the relationship between South Africa and the US."

But the executive stressed that the aim was to do that indirectly by developing specific concrete projects rather than rushing into any formal government-to-government agreement.

"This is less about political talk shops and bilateral agreements and...