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Идет битва за конголезский кобальт. Китай уверенно опережает
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Соперничество за критически важные полезные ископаемые усиливается, но обозреватель говорит, что США «не предлагают жизнеспособной альтернативы» китайским инвестициям в ДР Конго
Дональд Трамп переворачивает с ног на голову мировой порядок с момента своего возвращения в Белый дом в январе. В этой серии из трех частей мы рассмотрим последствия внешней политики Трампа, начиная с конкуренции между США и Китаем за критически важные полезные ископаемые в Демократической Республике Конго.
Борьба между Пекином и Вашингтоном по поводу источников и переработки критически важных минералов, возможно, не была бы такой интенсивной, если бы Соединенные Штаты не продали два крупнейших в мире кобальтовых рудника Китаю.
Оба кобальт-медных рудника расположены в Демократической Республике Конго.
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В 2016 году американский горнодобывающий гигант Freeport-McMoRan продал свою долю в руднике Tenke Fungurume компании CMOC Group, тогда известной как China Molybdenum, за 2,65 миллиарда долларов США. Четыре года спустя она также продала свою долю в руднике Кисанфу китайской горнодобывающей компании за 550 миллионов долларов.
Эти два приобретения более чем удвоили поставки кобальта CMOC, и в 2023 году компания стала крупнейшим в мире производителем этого минерала по объему производства.
DR Congo, or the DRC, is by far the world's biggest source of cobalt - a mineral needed for making the batteries used in phones and electric vehicles - accounting for about 70 per cent of global production. It is also a key source of copper and a dozen other critical metals and rare earth minerals.
That has drawn multibillion-dollar Chinese investments to the Central African nation as part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. They include a US$7 billion Sicomines resource-for-infrastructure deal under which a -consortium of Chinese firms, led by Sinohydro and China Railway Engineering Corporation, will build roads, power transmission lines and hydro dams. The Chinese firms are to be repaid in minerals or income generated from them.
Chinese state-owned creditors approved 19 loan commitments worth about US$12.85 billion for cobalt-copper mines in DR Congo between 2000 and 2021, according to research published in February by AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary in the US.
Political turmoil in the mineral-rich east of DR Congo has complicated the situation for investors, with militant groups led by M23 capturing Bukavu, capital of South Kivu, on February 14 after they took Goma, capital of North Kivu, the previous month.
Last month, President Felix Tshisekedi offered the US direct access to strategic minerals if it intervened to end the conflict, according to a post on X by the president's spokeswoman, Tina Salama.
On February 20, Washington imposed sanctions on a Rwandan government minister over his alleged support for the M23 armed group fighting in the east of DR Congo.
According to a Financial Times report last week, the US is also engaged in "exploratory talks" with DR Congo on a deal that would see the African nation grant access to its critical minerals in exchange for military support.
Observers say the Donald Trump administration might be able to leverage the situation in DR Congo to apply pressure on Kinshasa so that it does not approve new acquisitions by Chinese companies. But they note that Chinese investors have already firmly established a presence in the country.
Christian-Geraud Neema, a Congolese mining and policy analyst and non-resident scholar with the Carnegie Africa Programme, said the "US doesn't offer a real, credible and viable alternative to the Chinese investments in the DRC".
"The DRC wants an option but doesn't want to align to just one side," said Neema, the Africa editor of the China-Global South Project.
He said Washington might want to stymie further Chinese investment in Congolese mines "but to kick the existing ones out just isn't feasible and that's not an option for the DRC".
According to Neema, the US needs to put an offer on the table.
"They have already cut USAID funding from which the DRC was receiving US$1 billion, but that is a broader move not targeted at the DRC specifically," said Neema, referring to Trump's move to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development.
America's National Association of Manufacturers last year said the price of buying a company like Congolese cobalt miner Chemaf Resources - whose deal to sell its assets to Norin Mining has stalled - was significant. It said some investors were waiting for the US government to offer support before pursuing such a deal.
"It has been difficult for the US government to interest American investors in any sector in Congo because of the country's poor infrastructure, limited skilled labour, resource nationalism and reputation for government corruption," the association said in a statement.
Last month, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs said critical mineral security was national security. It said if China increased its control over these supply chains it would be detrimental to both DR Congo and the US.
"The DRC government must ensure that Norinco's bid remains blocked. Don't give the PRC another inch," the committee said in a post on X last month responding to Norinco's offer to buy copper and cobalt assets owned by Chemaf.
But as demand for cobalt and other critical minerals skyrockets, there is wide bipartisan consensus in Washington on the US strategic interest in Africa - especially for gaining access to those minerals, and especially in DR Congo.
The previous Joe Biden administration in 2022 signed a memorandum of understanding with DR Congo and Zambia - another resource-rich African nation - to provide funding and expertise for their mining industries.
To help it gain access to minerals, the US is funding the building of its first megaproject in Africa in decades, the Lobito Corridor - a railway and logistics project connecting Angola with Zam-bia and DR Congo. The project is expected to help the US and its allies secure critical and strategic minerals that are central to their green-energy plans. However, it is not clear whether the Trump administration will back the project given the freeze on US foreign assistance.
Kai Xue, a Beijing-based corporate lawyer who advises on foreign direct investment and cross-border financing, said given DR Congo's position as the world's primary cobalt supplier, "the Trump administration will likely continue to view the DRC as a strategic battleground".
Xue noted that the Biden administration had intervened to pressure DR Congo into blocking a Chinese state-owned entity's acquisition of a cobalt and copper miner in 2024 - referring to the stalled Chemaf deal with Norin Mining, a unit of defence giant China North Industries Corporation.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Washington had also initiated discussions with a number of American companies to buy Chemaf.
Meanwhile, there is concern in Beijing that its belt and road infrastructure and investment strategy will become more of a US target after the Trump administration pressured Panama to quit the initiative - something it could repeat in other places where Washington wants to counter Chinese influence.
In response, China's assistant foreign minister Zhao Zhiyuan accused the US of "wantonly undermining China-Panama relations and smearing and sabotaging belt and road cooperation through the means of pressuring and threatening".
Chris Berry, who heads US-based commodities advisory firm House Mountain Partners, said while Trump wanted to "bring industries home" it was unclear how he intended to do so, aside from the use of tariffs.
And he did not see any change to the dynamic in DR Congo.
"Chinese companies are so entrenched in the DRC that I'm not sure what leverage the US or other Western nations have in the country currently to shift this dynamic in the near term," Berry said.
He noted that there had been progress on the Lobito Corridor but the freeze on US aid put the timing and pace of the project in question - opening the door for Chinese interests to strengthen their supply chains and invest more in the country.
Seifudein Adem, a global affairs expert and research fellow at the JICA Ogata Research Institute for Peace and Development in Tokyo, said China had every reason to be concerned about Trump's next move in DR Congo given his transactional approach to foreign policy.
Adem said competition between the US and China for critical raw materials in DR Congo was likely to intensify.
"As we have seen in the opening weeks of the Trump administration in connection with some other countries - including America's own allies - for him what is good for America, however he defines it, is good for the world," Adem said. "That may be his global expectation."
According to Neema, "US companies might be a bit more interested to go back to the DRC" after Trump halted enforcement of an anti-corruption law - the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - that bars Americans from bribing foreign government officials to win business.
Trump said "overenforcement" of the law put US businesses at a disadvantage in international markets.
DR Congo is poorly ranked at 163 out of 180 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2024.
But as far as critical minerals are concerned, China has "a virtual monopoly on copper and cobalt production", according to Joseph Cihunda, from the University of Kinshasa's law faculty.
Noting that there were no American mining companies operating in DR Congo at present, he said Chinese had also invested in the country's lithium, diamonds, gold and 3T ores - tin, tungsten and tantalum.
Cihunda, who is also a project officer at the Congolese office of Southern Africa Resource Watch, said he did not see how the US could catch up with China on critical minerals investment in the country.
"Pressure on the Congolese government, or in the worst case, changing it, won't be enough given that Congolese public opinion considers the US to be the one pulling the strings in all the murderous wars the DRC has experienced since 1996," he said.
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