Trump Aid Freeze Risks $1 Billion African Minerals Project
An expansion of the US's biggest strategic critical-minerals project in Africa is at risk.
Last year, the US approved a $553 million DFC loan for the Lobito Atlantic Railway project, which is designed to link copper mines in Congo and Zambia to the port of Lobito in neighboring Angola.
Photographer: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty ImagesA billion-dollar expansion of the biggest US strategic critical-minerals project in Africa faces delays because of the Trump administration’s sweeping foreign-aid freeze, providing a potential opening for rivals like China.
The Lobito corridor railway project — which is meant to ferry minerals from the Central African copperbelt to the Angolan coast for export to the West — is among mining and energy projects across the continent that have been pledged loans and services by the US International Development Finance Corp., with co-funding from the US Agency for International Development.