The DRC’s security-for-minerals bargain, by Fanny Pigeaud (Le Monde diplomatique

On 3 February this year, the Anglo-Swiss multinational Glencore announced plans to sell 40% of its mining assets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Orion CMC, a US public-private consortium set up in October 2025. The same day, the Canadian company Ivanhoe Mines said it was prepared to supply zinc from its Kipushi mine in the DRC to Project Vault, a strategic mineral reserve launched by the White House the day before. On 4 February Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi was in Washington, for an international summit on critical minerals followed by the national prayer breakfast, an annual gathering of American political, military and business leaders, where President Donald Trump introduced him as a key ally.

The US is pursuing the dual objective of securing strategic supply chains and preventing China from ‘expanding its footprint beyond what it already possesses’, explained Christian-Géraud Neema Byamungu, an analyst at the China-Global South Project. After the Covid pandemic exposed how much US industry depended on Beijing for its critical minerals, the Biden administration launched its response, noting with concern that ‘the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has captured nearly the entire supply chain, and it currently has nearly 60% of mined production, over 85% of processing capacity, and over 90% of permanent magnet production’.

With the transition to clean energy transforming global industrial needs, the Congolese subsoil is an Aladdin’s cave: it not only contains 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves, but is also rich in gold, diamonds, zinc, manganese, nickel, tin, tungsten, tantalum and lithium.

US companies had long been present in the DRC’s mining sector, but they gradually withdrew during the 2000s, judging production costs too high and reform of local mining regulations unfavourable. At the same time China was establishing itself in the country which, after a decade of conflict and instability, was looking for (…)

Full article: 1 771 words.