The United States is intensifying its competition with China over Africa’s critical minerals by preparing up to $1 billion to support a strategic railway in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The funding would back a 30-year concession for the Congolese section of the Lobito Corridor, with Portugal’s Mota-Engil expected to sign the agreement.
The approximately 1,000-kilometre railway links key mining centres such as Kolwezi, Tenke and Lubumbashi with Angola’s Atlantic coast, creating an alternative export route for copper and cobalt.
The US International Development Finance Corporation expressed interest in financing the railway’s rehabilitation and operation through an agreement signed with Mota-Engil in December.
The initiative reflects Washington’s effort to secure critical-mineral supplies and reduce Western reliance on China’s dominant role in the DRC’s mining and processing sectors.
The railway project is not merely an infrastructure investment. Control over mineral-export routes can provide influence comparable to control over the mines, giving the countries and companies involved greater leverage over global supplies of essential resources.
The DRC’s position as the world’s second-largest copper producer and leading cobalt producer makes the railway especially important. Both minerals are central to electric vehicles, batteries, renewable-energy systems and other advanced technologies.
Mota-Engil already operates part of the Lobito Corridor in Angola with Trafigura. Extending its operations into the DRC would give the company a broader, long-term role in a strategically important mineral network.
China is also investing heavily in regional infrastructure, supporting a $1.4 billion rehabilitation of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, which connects Zambia’s copper belt with the port of Dar es Salaam.
The rival railway projects demonstrate that African transport infrastructure is becoming a major arena of US-China geopolitical competition, with ports and corridors increasingly treated as strategic access points to mineral resources.
African countries could benefit from improved infrastructure, greater export capacity and stronger links to international markets. However, the competition also raises concerns over whether they will secure sufficient long-term value from their resources or become battlegrounds for foreign powers.
The DRC railway is therefore a potentially important step in the right direction, but its success will depend on whether it delivers lasting benefits for the Congolese economy and communities rather than primarily serving foreign strategic and commercial interests. Rising demand for copper, cobalt and other strategic resources will likely continue shaping Africa’s infrastructure, investment and trade relationships through competition between Washington and Beijing.
