The Prize Nobody Wants to Admit They Are Fighting Over
There is a conversation happening in diplomatic circles, boardrooms and government ministries from Washington to Beijing to Brussels that everyone is conducting in polite language. Strip away politeness and it comes down to this: whoever controls critical minerals of Central Africa controls significant part of global economy for next several decades.
Africa holds approximately 30 percent of global mineral reserves, including dominant shares of cobalt, manganese, platinum group metals and graphite. Despite this, continent captures only about 10 percent of value generated from its mineral exports, largely due to continued reliance on raw material exports and limited domestic processing capacity.
DRC alone sits on estimated 24 trillion dollars in untapped mineral wealth. Angola has oil, gas and strategic Atlantic port. Cameroon has timber, minerals and geography that makes it gateway to landlocked interior. CAR has gold and diamonds underneath conflict that has kept investors away for a decade.
Competition to access all of this has moved in 2026 from diplomatic positioning to concrete deal-making. And pace is accelerating.
Lobito Corridor: Infrastructure as Geopolitical Weapon
Most visible expression of US-China competition in region is railway line that most people outside policy circles have never heard of.
Lobito Corridor stretches from Angola's Atlantic coast through DRC to Zambia's mineral-rich Copperbelt. In December 2025, United States signed strategic partnership agreement with DRC, establishing Strategic Asset Reserve — priority mining zones designated for joint US-DRC development where American companies receive preferential treatment. Start of Phase 2 construction in 2026 will create direct Atlantic export infrastructure, completely circumventing Chinese logistics networks.
This last point is key. US is not just investing in railway. It is investing in route that bypasses China. Every ton of cobalt that travels through Lobito Corridor to Atlantic port is ton that does not pass through Chinese-controlled logistics chains. Infrastructure, in other words, is not just economic project — it is geopolitical instrument.
China currently processes 80 percent of global cobalt refining and 40 percent of global copper smelting. That processing dominance is what United States is trying to challenge — and why Lobito Corridor matters so much beyond simple railway economics.
February's Critical Minerals Ministerial: Fifty-Four Countries and a Very Large Deal
Event in Washington in February 2026 did not receive attention it deserved outside specialist circles. It should have.
February 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial brought together 54 countries and saw signing of memorandum of understanding between Glencore and Orion Critical Minerals Consortium. US Development Finance Corporation simultaneously disclosed joint venture negotiations to secure 100,000 tons of Congolese copper for US market and 50,000 tons for Gulf allies. In January, DFC had already co-invested with Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company in critical minerals across areas of mutual strategic interest. Abu Dhabi-based AD Ports agreed to develop multipurpose terminal in Matadi along Congo River — extending UAE's logistics footprint directly into DRC's mineral heartland.
Gulf states have entered picture in significant way. They are not choosing between US and China — they are investing in infrastructure that gives them access regardless of who wins geopolitical competition. This pragmatic third-pole approach is changing dynamics of what was previously bilateral US-China contest.
China's Answer: Long-Term, Deeply Embedded, Not Going Anywhere
While Washington is building new corridors, Beijing is defending existing positions — and those positions are very difficult to dislodge.
China dominates global refining capacity across 19 of 20 critical minerals and remains primary destination for African raw materials. China's strategy remains long-term and deeply integrated through Belt and Road Initiative — not responding to US moves with equivalent moves but continuing to deepen structural presence built over two decades.
In DRC, Chinese-backed projects have been accompanied by construction of roads, hospitals and power infrastructure in exchange for copper and cobalt access. This resource-for-infrastructure model created dependencies that are not simply dissolved by new agreements with Washington. Chinese companies are now embedded across mining, processing, logistics and trading infrastructure in ways that any new entrant — American, European or Gulf — must engage with rather than simply replace.
China signed new mining agreement with DRC in March 2026 — four months after US strategic partnership. Timing was not coincidence. Beijing is not conceding ground.
What Central Africa Actually Gets From All of This
Here is question that tends to get lost in coverage of great power competition: are Angola, DRC, Cameroon and CAR actually benefiting from all this foreign interest?
Chatham House is direct on this point — rather than renewed paternalism or strategy to subvert competition, welcome response from West would be frank acknowledgement of what it wants — critical minerals — and what it is willing to offer in exchange. This means accepting that some mineral deals African economies strike will not be in West's interests. But that does not mean those deals will not benefit Africa.
G20 Critical Minerals Framework adopted at 2025 Johannesburg Summit seeks to reconcile Global North's urgent demand for energy-transition minerals with industrial ambitions and sovereignty of Global South. For investors, success in 2026 and beyond will depend on abandoning traditional extract-and-export models in favour of collaborative, processing-focused strategies aligned with regional development objectives.
Angola is playing this game most skillfully — accepting US financing for Lobito Corridor, maintaining comprehensive strategic partnership with China, negotiating critical minerals agreement with EU, and receiving Gulf investment simultaneously. Luanda is not choosing sides. It is collecting rent from everyone.
DRC is learning. Tshisekedi's decision to send Washington shortlist of state-owned mining assets — essentially an auction catalogue for American investors — while simultaneously signing new deal with China, demonstrates that Kinshasa understands its leverage even if it has not always used it effectively.
Cameroon and CAR are further behind in this game, constrained by conflict, governance challenges and less developed investment frameworks. But even they are beginning to understand that global hunger for their resources is an asset — if they can build capacity to negotiate terms rather than simply accept them.
The Bottom Line
Global landscape for critical minerals has undergone fundamental transformation in 2025 and 2026 — shifting from speculative interest to entrenched resource nationalism and intense geopolitical competition. Africa's real opportunity lies in regional industrialisation driven by AfCFTA protocols and SADC-based mineral strategies.
Great minerals scramble is real, it is accelerating, and Central Africa is at its centre. Whether region ends up as passive prize in someone else's competition — or as active participant extracting genuine value from its own resources — is question that decisions being made right now in Luanda, Kinshasa, Yaoundé and Bangui will determine.
History of this region suggests caution. But 2026 looks, for first time in a long time, like moment when something different might be possible.
