The US faces an unprecedented national economic and security challenge, namely securing its critical mineral supplies without going through foreign adversaries. To obtain this in considerable quantities, with a view to reducing their dependence on China, mainly towards China, then becomes an objective to be achieved. This justifies the strategic partnership around the finality of the US and the DRC, which aims to ensure a secure supply of essential resources, including cobalt, copper, coltan, and lithium, in return for securing the eastern part of the DRC. However, the agreement tests Kinshasa to the test of good mining governance and the transparency required by Washington, which engages US private companies.
The US’s needs for strategic and critical minerals are more than obvious. The decree aimed at strengthening
national security and
economic resilience through targeted measures on these
minerals strongly reaffirms this forcefully. He also unveils the “Thirstist” vision of an Africa rooted in shared economic opportunities, not conflicts, alluding to the war that the DRC has been experiencing for thirty years, a country that is replete with the quantity of minerals and is the object of no other lust. As a result, the agreement on minerals against security and development between Washington and Kinshasa, which is being finalized and is expected to boost the agreement between Congo and Rwanda, is set at a timely level.
In this dynamic, the US encourages US private-sector investors to storm the DRC for the exploitation of the above-mentioned minerals that its Hi-Tech industry needs. In other words, the Trump administration supports US private-sector companies, for which it is clearing the ground, to untie the cordon of their stock exchanges to invest in the Congolese mining sector, naturally through the Congolese private companies with which they will enter into partnerships.
For a win-win partnership, the senior adviser to the US President for Africa, Mr. Boulos, has not gone four paths to focus on the values that should govern this strategic partnership: good mining governance and transparency. This puts the Congolese government to the test, which some members are tired of excelling in a risky approach to public management to satisfy their petty interests.
As it emerges, the road is drawn and there are no other alternative schemes. This is to say that, under this deal, agreements of the kind of those formerly signed with Primera Gold and Primera Metal who, after having made the headlines, have failed to discourage and cannot be reissued. In the present case, mining concessions may not be taken in good form from third parties in order to dispose of them in favour of the deal or to seek to dispossess the owners of the mining titles by tripling to the mining Cadastre (CAMI).
The case of the Australian AVa Metals in a business relationship with the American KoBold Metals for the development of the Manono lithium deposit in the province of Upper Lomami, in the former Katanga, must serve as a lesson with the dispute between the ATA Metals-Comminière dispute, the outcome of which is known before the Court of Arbitration. The mining titles were at the centre of this dispute, namely the obtaining by Comminière of the extension of PR 13359 on its behalf with the CAMI, as well as the division of the PR formerly belonging to AV- Metals.
The Americans are thus calling for good governance and transparency, among other things, in the management of mining titles. However, if they carry the specifications of their private companies under this deal, the fact remains that the Congolese private mining companies with which the Tshisekedi Government will play to implement the agreement are, until then, a conundrum. Yet these should be inventoried and prepared to play effectively to bring the benefits of this partnership to the Congo.
To tell the truth, the Trump administration seems to have no time to lose. There is certainly progress, Mr Boulos, who revealed on Thursday 15 May that the preliminary draft of the peace agreement was sent to Presidents Tshisekedi and Kagame with whom he exchanged on the phone. On the other hand, Robert Friendland, founder and co-founder of Ivanhoe, whose company is the largest mining investor in the Lobito Corridor and is playing an increasingly central role in the formation of mineral supply chains across Africa and beyond, met US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince in Riyadh this week.
There is no doubt that the issue of Congo was raised during the high-level gathering in Saudi Arabia, which highlighted the global focus on strategic mineral corridors and investment in infrastructure. As a reminder, the Lobito corridor asserts itself from being ready to connect Africa to the rest of the world.
In the process, the Rwanda-based mining group Trinity Metals signed a letter of intent during the week ending with the American company Nathan Trotter, one of the American leaders in tin refining and distribution. A first-step initiative towards the development of a supply chain for this ore to the US.
Affirming the largest tin mine in Rwanda, which houses more than 54,000 tons of minerals in Rutongo, north of Kigali, Trinity Metals, majority owned by Dublin-based Techmet, had already approached the United States last year by obtaining a USD 3.8 million fund from DFC, a US government development finance agency.
He plans to keep the top of the pipeline in the future, which seems like a propaganda action, since Alphamin resources, with its mine from Bisie to Walikale, produced 17,324 T of tin in 2024, compared to 12,568 T in 2023. The forecast is 17,500 T in 2025 following the known inconvenience with the rebel attacks against 20,000 T initially. These three years of Alphamin Resources production represent the reserves of the Rwandan mine in Rutongo.
The turmoil in Rwanda means that another era is coming. The Tshisekedi government, as well as Congolese companies, must be alert and vigilant so that they are not made of speed and thus find themselves in a vice.
From above
The US faces an unprecedented national economic and security challenge
The US’s needs for strategic and critical minerals are more than obvious.
To tell the truth, the Trump administration seems to have no time to lose
Our friend AugustV on X stated "The US is not desperate for anything in this world."
He may need to reconsider .
