Critical minerals push in Congo

Washington and its partners have turned Congo’s copper-and-cobalt belt into a supply-chain priority, backing rail, ports and mining ties that route more exports west through Angola. (state.gov) The anchor project is the Lobito Corridor, a rail-and-port route linking southern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia’s Copperbelt to Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito. The European Commission says the corridor includes Angola’s operating rail line, a planned Zambia-Angola rail link and rehabilitation of the Kolwezi-Dilolo section in Congo. (international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu) The financing push started in public in October 2023, when the African Development Bank joined the United States, the European Commission, the African Finance Corporation and the three host governments in a memorandum tied to a $1.6 billion transport program. The bank said the works included about 550 kilometers of new rail in Zambia and 260 kilometers of feeder roads. (afdb.org) By September 2024, the State Department said the United States had mobilized more than $4 billion for the corridor and related infrastructure in less than 18 months. U.S. officials described it as the flagship African project under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. (state.gov) The mineral logic is straightforward: Congo is one of the world’s biggest sources of battery metals, and the United States still depends heavily on imports for cobalt. The U.S. Geological Survey said most U.S. cobalt supply in 2024 came from imports and scrap, while its 2024 commodity summary said Congo accounted for 74% of global mined cobalt output in 2023. (pubs.usgs.gov; pubs.usgs.gov) That helps explain why the U.S.-Congo relationship widened beyond transport. In a December 4, 2025 strategic partnership agreement, Washington said it wanted “secure, reliable and durable supply chains for critical minerals,” while Kinshasa said it wanted more local processing, jobs and diversified partners. (state.gov) The next step came in February 2026, when the two governments formally began implementing that pact through a joint steering committee. The State Department said Congo designated an initial list of Strategic Asset Reserve assets and that U.S. companies would receive preferential access to them. (state.gov) Congo is also trying to gain more control over the market at home. The U.S. Commerce Department’s country guide says the government suspended cobalt exports for four months in February 2025 to address oversupply and plans export quotas from October 2025. (trade.gov) The U.S. and European pitch is that the Lobito route gives miners and traders another path besides the Indian Ocean corridors long used by the region’s copper belt. The European Commission calls it the first open-access transcontinental rail link in Africa, aimed at moving minerals and other goods to global markets through Lobito. (international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu) The harder part is whether new logistics and foreign capital translate into more value inside Congo, not just faster exports out of it. For now, the corridor and the minerals pact show Washington and its allies trying to lock in access to metals that sit inside phones, data centers, power grids and electric-vehicle batteries. (state.gov; pubs.usgs.gov)