US eyes chance to challenge China’s dominance in key African trade corridor

Washington is considering financing a transport route that could help secure access to critical minerals

China controls most processing and refining of African resources vital for world’s transition to green energy

Reading Time:4 minutes

The US wants to carve out access to critical minerals in Southern Africa, but China currently controls much of the market for processing and refining the minerals, including key transport infrastructure in Angola. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Published: 12:00pm, 3 Jun 2023

The United States is studying a US$250 million financing package to build a key transport corridor in southern Africa aimed at securing access to critical minerals like copper and cobalt used in electronics and batteries for electric vehicles.

US President Joe Biden said the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) was conducting due diligence for financing the Lobito Atlantic Railway Corridor, which stretches across Angola to link the Katanga mining regions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Zambian province of Copperbelt.

The Lobito corridor serves as the key route to transport minerals to export markets from inland mining sites in the DRC and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic Port of Lobito. The project would cut transport times from weeks to days, according to mining companies in the region.

The DRC is by far the world’s largest exporter of cobalt, accounting for about 70 per cent of global production, while Zambia is rich in both copper and cobalt. Angola is one of the top oil producers in Africa and is also home to diamond mines.

But the deal would put the US in direct competition with China, whose companies have vast investments in Zambia’s copper-producing region and in the DRC, from where China sources more than 60 per cent of its cobalt.

“It is going to enable … us to better access clean energy and digital connectivity across the entire region,” Biden said at the recent Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima.