Africa’s Critical Minerals Spark U.S.-China Competition Over Railway Export Corridors

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Protests in Kenya turn violent, Ghana reaches a debt deal, and Namibia decriminalizes homosexuality.

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The U.S. government is helping to revive a railway line linking critical mineral mines in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the port of Lobito in Angola. The corridor is a key to the Biden administration’s plan to counter China in Africa. (Chinese companies have made extensive infrastructure investments in all three countries.)

The end goal of the Lobito Corridor is to create an efficient route for exporting critical minerals to the European Union and the United States. Last week, Italy announced a $320 million investment in the project as part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s bid for African resource access, named the Mattei Plan for Africa. A consortium of European companies—Mota-Engil, Vecturis, and Singapore-based Swiss commodity trader Trafigura—have won a 30-year concession from the three African nations to operate the railway.

The United States has committed $250 million, mostly in concessionary loans from the Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank. Other major funders include the African Development Bank ($500 million) and Africa Finance Corporation. The Lobito project is ultimately expected to cost $2.3 billion.

Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, accounting for about 70 percent of production globally. Congo and Zambia are Africa’s main copper producers; meanwhile, Angola has 36 of the 51 minerals that are critical to green energy technologies. Belgium and Portugal built the original rail line between 1902 and 1929, but it collapsed following a civil war and Angola’s 1975 independence from Portugal.

However, once the roughly 800-mile line is built, it could still be accessed by Beijing’s state mining companies for export. So far, only the Canadian firm Ivanhoe Mines has committed to using the railway.

Meanwhile, China has proposed rebuilding and running a rival railway, the Tazara line—which is 300 miles shorter than the Lobito Corridor—as a faster way to transport critical minerals from Congo and Zambia. Tazara, first built by Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s government in the 1970s, runs from Zambia to the Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and is just one part of China’s infrastructure investments in Africa over the past four decades.

“The reality of the Lobito Corridor development is that it may be coming too late in the day … since most of the supply has already been locked in by China,” wrote Evans Wala Chabala, a policy consultant and former chief executive of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zambia.

Congo, which sells most of its raw minerals to China for processing, hopes that the Lobito Corridor will also draw investments in a battery precursor plant that could cost just one-third of an equivalent plant in China or the United States.

However, Kinshasa is contending with ongoing violence in the eastern region of the country as well as a lack of specialized workers; the most likely candidates to risk such a project would be Chinese operators. Experts believe that Chinese mine operators would be able to use the corridor for export.

“With the EU and the US lagging in terms of EV [electric vehicle] technology, it is very likely that the DRC and Zambia will end up looking to the East for the capacity and capability building of EV battery value chains,” Wala Chabala noted.

“Just compare the number of essential EV players in China to that of the United States. Whereas only a handful of B-level companies meet Tesla’s dominance in the United States, China has powerhouses in BYD, Geely, XPeng, Nio, Chery, and others” Jorge Guajardo wrote in Foreign Policy.

Some analysts argue that the Lobito corridor is little more than a minerals extraction project, and that the United States needs to look beyond that to outmaneuver China. “Washington’s attempt to borrow a page from Beijing’s book could prove to be a day late and a dollar short at a time when the nature of the relationship between Beijing and African capitals is changing,” wrote Chris O. Ògúnmọ́dẹdé, an analyst studying African politics.

Beijing is attempting to build local value-added chains. Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Nigeria, in which Chinese companies have a monopoly, have restricted the export of raw lithium in favor of processing it locally in Chinese built refineries. To be fair, Washington has also pledged along with China to help Zambia add value to raw minerals and create jobs in EV battery manufacturing.

Yet “one of Beijing’s considerable advantages over its rivals is its ability to get the private and public sectors to align with its geopolitical and strategic objectives,” wrote Christian Géraud Neema Byamungu, an expert on China-Africa relations.

Success hinges on whether the U.S. government and EU leaders can convince private companies to compete against state-owned Chinese companies that face little regulation and accountability.

Tuesday, June 25, to Thursday, June 27: A global event to discuss investment in vaccine manufacturing in Africa will be held in Nairobi.

Thursday, June 27: The U.N. Security Council discusses its mission in the Central African Republic and sanctions on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are due to expire on June 29.

Friday, June 28: A Security Council report is due on possible support to a regional force in Congo.

Saturday, June 29: Presidential elections are held in Mauritania.

Saturday, June 29, to Sunday, June 30: Egypt-EU Investment Conference held in Cairo.

Kenya’s anti-tax protests. At least five people have been shot dead and 200 others injured after a nationwide strike on Tuesday turned violent when protesters stormed the Kenyan parliament in Nairobi, setting fire to parts of the building. The country’s army was deployed by the evening, and more than 50 people were arrested, with live ammunition used against some protesters. Auma Obama, a Kenyan activist and the half sister of former U.S. President Barack Obama, was among those who were tear-gassed, CNN reported.

Earlier that day, lawmakers had passed an amended finance bill with wide-ranging tax increases. Demonstrators want the bill scrapped. President William Ruto’s reforms include hiked wage taxes, a social health tax, and higher levies on imports. Kenyans have nicknamed him “Zakayo” after the biblical tax collector Zacchaeus. Amnesty International said prior to the planned marches that at least 12 people with links to the protests have been “abducted” in recent days.

U.S. military conference in Botswana. The U.S.-led Africa Chiefs of Defense Conference was held in Africa for the first time this week when Botswana co-hosted the meeting. The conference brings together defense leaders from around a dozen African nations including Niger’s top military chief, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou at a time when the United States has been asked to withdraw from Niger and is losing political influence across the Sahel. Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said the movement of equipment and personnel out of Niger would be completed by Sept. 15. Washington is seeking an alternative military base in West African coastal nations such as Benin, Ghana, and Ivory Coast.

Rwanda election rally stampede. One person died and dozens were injured on Sunday during a stampede at a campaign rally for incumbent President Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s state-run broadcaster reported. The crush happened in Rubavu district in the country’s western region, near the border with Congo. Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front-Inkotanyi party said it was “deeply saddened” by the death.

Rwandans head to the polls on July 15 in an election that Kagame is widely expected to win, giving him a fourth term and continuing his nearly 25 years in office. Only two candidates have been cleared to run against Kagame, and both won less than 1 percent of the votes in the last election; all other candidates have been barred.

Niger revokes French uranium license. Niger, the world’s seventh-largest uranium supplier, has withdrawn the permit for French company Orano to operate a large mine in the country. Operations at the Imouraren mine, located in the northern region, restarted on June 4 after a pause in 2015 following a crash in uranium prices. However, Niger’s mining ministry wrote to Orano in a letter dated June 20 that the company’s plan “did not meet our expectations.”

Orano has been operating in Niger for more than 50 years, and the mine has one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, with reserves estimated at 200,000 tons. But relations have soured between military governments in the Sahel and former colonial power France, which analysts say could mark the end of Françafrique—a policy of preferential benefits for France that often go against African countries’ national interests. In a statement, Orano said it was “willing to keep all channels of communication open” but reserves “the right to challenge the decision” in a national or international court.

Ghana’s strikes debt deal. Ghana on Monday reached an agreement in principle with private creditors to restructure $13 billion worth of foreign bond debt. Bondholders will forgo about $4.7 billion of their claims, accepting losses of 37 percent on their holdings. Ghana agreed a $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout in 2022, and hardship experienced under IMF terms will be a core issue for voters when Ghanaians head to the polls in presidential elections in December. Incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo is stepping down when his term ends, respecting the country’s two-term limit.

Namibia LGBT ruling. Namibia has decriminalized homosexuality. In a landmark judgment, Namibia’s high court ruled that laws banning sex between men were unconstitutional. The case was brought by Friedel Dausab, a gay Namibian man who argued the laws infringed on citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms. “Because of this decision, I no longer feel like a criminal on the run in my own country simply because of who I am,” he told French news agency AFP. There are no laws in Namibia banning sex between women; however, same-sex couples are still unable to marry. A same-sex union is only recognized if they wed abroad and one member is not a Namibian citizen. Although around 20 African nations have legalized homosexuality, neighboring South Africa is the only African country to allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

Fewer than 1 in 4 (23 percent) of workers globally are “engaged” and enthusiastic on the job, according to Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report, which estimates that low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion, or 9 percent of global GDP. Engagement levels in Africa fall below the global average, at 20 percent, yet above that of Europe and South Asia at just 13 percent. As the chart below shows, bulking the trend is Africa’s largest economy, South Africa.

Embracing risqué literature. In New Lines Magazine, Ahmed Mahjoub writes that classical Arabic literature courses taught in North Africa often exclude its rich history of discussions on sex, alcohol, drugs, and politics. “Classical Arabic writers enjoyed a level of freedom that feels alien in today’s Arab world,” Mahjoub writes. “Self-proclaimed moral authorities exhibit a profound fear of anything perceived as Western or culturally incongruous. However, the reality is that the themes explored in these works are not foreign imports.”

Kenya’s green roofs. Fast urbanization across Africa’s major economies has led cities from Cairo to Johannesburg to Lagos to build rooftop meadows. Leading the pack is Nairobi, writes Gitonga Njeru in African Arguments. So far, there are nearly 200 green roofs in Kenya’s capital—growing by about 12 percent a year but this cannot replace ground level biodiversity Njeru writes. “Nairobi’s diminishing natural habitats has contributed to a growing urban heat island effect and greater vulnerability to rapid flooding as seen in the recent devastating torrential rains.”