In Africa, the US and China vie for control over critical mineral supply chains, using infrastructure corridors to secure strategic economic and geopolitical advantage
In December 2025, the United States (US) signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The agreement established a Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR), designating priority mining zones for joint US–DRC development. Under this framework, US companies will receive preferential treatment for SAR projects, creating direct competition with China, which controls over 72 percent of Congolese copper and cobalt mines.
Africa’s infrastructure deficit has made the continent a key theatre of great-power competition, with control of critical mineral supply chains emerging as the main strategic prize. The Lobito Corridor, stretching from Angola’s Atlantic coast through the Democratic Republic of Congo to Zambia’s mineral-rich Copperbelt, has been the most visible manifestation of this rivalry. Under the Trump administration, the United States significantly expanded its financial commitment to the project through the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), signalling that mineral supply chain security is among Washington’s top strategic priorities on the continent.
Africa’s infrastructure deficit has made the continent a key theatre of great-power competition, with control of critical mineral supply chains emerging as the main strategic prize.
The rationale is anchored in a broader concern: China’s dominance in processing and exporting minerals essential for clean energy, defence technologies, and electric vehicles gives Beijing substantial control over key global supply chains. Africa holds a large share of these mineral reserves, yet most existing infrastructure channels funnel exports through Chinese-controlled logistics networks. Washington’s investment in the Lobito Corridor is therefore part of a broader strategic vision, which also includes the US–Ukraine Critical Minerals Agreement and the US-mediated DRC–Rwanda peace accord of June 2025, demonstrating that American engagement in the region extends far beyond financing infrastructure projects.
Figure 1: The Lobito Corridor
Source: The American Ceramic Society (ACerS)
The Trump administration has strengthened US involvement in the Lobito Corridor, using the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as a tool to counter Chinese control of critical supply chains. In December 2025, DFC CEO Ben Black granted Lobito Atlantic Railway a loan of US$ 550 million to maintain operations despite expanded foreign assistance reviews. Congressional approval to expand DFC’s financing capacity to over US$ 140 billion has made Africa the agency’s second-largest portfolio, with an outlay of US$ 10 billion in the region. The strategic rationale is clear: infrastructure finance helps liberate mineral export trade routes in Chinese-dominated southern and eastern Africa. The DFC strategy prioritises bankable projects involving private-sector participation, in contrast to Chinese state-driven funding systems. This so-called investment-driven approach aims to demonstrate that non-BRI solutions can deliver large-scale infrastructure while remaining transparent and financially viable.
The strategic rationale is clear: infrastructure finance helps liberate mineral export trade routes in Chinese-dominated southern and eastern Africa.
Strategic prioritisation, however, raises questions of credibility. The 90-day foreign assistance review conducted in January 2025 led to a 20 percent reduction in Africa-focused aid, including USAID programmes, even as DFC infrastructure financing increased. The fact that funding for the Lobito Corridor has risen despite cuts to USAID programmes across the continent indicates that mineral security is the administration’s highest priority. This approach is counterintuitive from the perspective of presenting the United States as a credible alternative partner, since China’s strategy—encompassing infrastructure, development aid, and consumer investment—is more holistic. The minerals-oriented reorientation risks undermining credibility and creating a disparity between American rhetoric and the actual distribution of resources. Whether an infrastructure-only engagement can position the United States as a partner in sustainable development, rather than a purely extractive competitor, remains uncertain.
The United States presents the Lobito Corridor as an alternative development opportunity to the BRI, whereas China views it as an attempt to exclude Chinese participation in African infrastructure projects. In response, China has accelerated its engagement in African infrastructure and sought to secure its own supply chains ahead of intensified competition with the United States on the continent.
China’s control over mineral processing remains its key strategic advantage. It currently dominates 95 percent of rare-earth refining, 90 percent of graphite processing for batteries, and 70 percent of lithium processing. This processing capacity provides China with enduring leverage, allowing it to regulate supply flows and pricing across green technology sectors.
China has accelerated its engagement in African infrastructure and sought to secure its own supply chains ahead of intensified competition with the United States on the continent.
Recognising the Lobito Corridor’s threat to mineral supply chains, Beijing launched a strategic counter to the United States. Most notably, China formalised US$ 1.4 billion in agreements with Zambia and Tanzania for the modernisation of the TAZARA railway, a 1,860-kilometre corridor connecting the Copperbelt to the Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam. The upgrade, announced during Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s first visit to Zambia in 28 years, would increase freight capacity from 100,000 to 2.4 million tonnes per year, directly competing with Lobito’s Phase 2 projections. Concurrently, China stepped up its BRI-sponsored green energy investments to US$ 9.7 billion in the first half of 2025, signalling a deliberate shift toward the “New Three” industries: electric vehicles, batteries, and renewable energy.
The strategic intent is clear: rather than diverting attention from critical minerals, China is redefining BRI 2.0 to emphasise environmental sustainability while maintaining control over upstream mining and downstream processing. Debt dynamics reinforce this position. As Zambia’s largest official creditor, with US$ 5.7 billion in claims, Beijing uses restructuring agreements to deepen its infrastructure entrenchment.
The Lobito Corridor under the Trump administration demonstrates progress on supply chain diversification, alongside challenges in establishing credible partnership frameworks. The Kamoa-Kakula mine, with an operational capacity of 437,061 tonnes per year and potential to rise to 2 million tonnes by 2030, combined with the US–DRC SAR agreement of December 2025—including options for preferential access to American firms—shows that alternatives to Chinese-run routes are also commercially viable. The start of Phase 2 construction in 2026 will create direct Atlantic export infrastructure, completely circumventing Chinese logistics networks. This illustrates the first component of the Trump administration’s strategic thesis: that the containment of Chinese supply chains can be achieved through long-term investment in infrastructure and bilateral mineral agreements.
However, credible partnerships remain the key indicator of an underlying contradiction in US strategy. A 20 percent decline in Africa-directed aid in January 2025—when USAID programme terminations coincided with an increase in DFC infrastructure financing—points to extractive rather than developmental priorities. This undermines the partnership credibility necessary to distinguish US engagement from transactional resource extraction.
The outcome of this competition will depend less on corridor efficiency and more on how effectively the United States can align resource allocation with its rhetoric of partnership and translate logistical successes into long-term strategic influence.
Veer Puri is a Research Assistant at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Veer Puri is a Research Assistant with ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy. At ORF, his research focuses on the Blue Economy and connectivity, with particular ...
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