Trump’s Africa Minerals Push Faces Long Road to Match Dominant China
While Washington is trying to make bigger deals, Beijing remains far ahead.
This article is for subscribers only.
Amid a week in which it went to war with Iran and sought to cement ties with Venezuela after having renditioned its president, the Trump administration managed to find time to slap sanctions on the army of a tiny East African nation: Rwanda.
The move looks to be part of a broader initiative to seek stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the eastern region of which is under the control of rebels backed by its neighbor and rival. The decision also spoke to Washington’s underlying interest in securing critical minerals and marks a major shift from past decades when the US paid limited attention to Africa — at least when compared with China, its top geopolitical rival.