The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is interested in developing the mining sector in Africa. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order focusing on minerals, mineral extraction, and mineral processing.
“Mainly in the United States but if you read closely there are also multiple references in that executive order to international partnerships and you know, cooperating with partner nations,” said Scott Woodard, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for energy transformation at the U.S. State Department.
Woodard spoke at a recent African mining conference — also known as an indaba — in Cape Town, South Africa.
Moderator Zainab Usman, director of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, asked Woodard whether the U.S. understands that in addition to mineral extraction, Africans want projects that add value to the raw material in order to boost the continent’s industrialization.
Woodard replied that the Trump administration is still putting together its policies.
In recent years, America’s investment in the African minerals needed for cleaner energy has been driven by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
In 2022, the U.S. entered into agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to establish a supply chain for electric vehicle batteries, underscoring its interest in both countries’ copper, lithium and cobalt resources.
The U.S. also has funded the rebuilding of the Lobito Rail Corridor, which will transport minerals from Congo, Zambia and Angola on the west coast.
Speaking in the exhibition hall during the indaba, Zambia’s minister of transport and logistics, Frank Tayali, thanked the U.S. for its leadership.
“We have something like a $350 billion gap in terms of infrastructure gap financing that the continent needs,” said Tayali. “Now this focus on infrastructure development is really key in helping the African economies to be able to improve so that they are able to look after their people more effectively.”
China, meanwhile, is invested in rehabilitating the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority — known as TAZARA — to bolster rail and sea transport in East Africa.
And in South Africa, the conference’s host country, transport and logistics problems at the state-owned Transnet railway system are being considered.
“The CEO of Transnet is very open about the state of the rail network,” said Allan Seccombe, head of communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa. ” … it needs a lot of work.”
How will they raise the money?
“They are going out on public tenders to try and get that investment in,” said Allan Seccombe, head of communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa. “Also, significantly they’re speaking to their customers who are by and large, large mining companies to maybe through tariffs they can invest in the rail network, improve it, then have private trains they can operate on the network.”
