US Approves $553 Million for Angola Railway to Boost African Mineral Exports

The United States (US) has approved a $553 million loan to refurbish Angola's Benguela railway line, marking Washington's most aggressive move yet to challenge China's dominance over Africa's critical mineral supply chains.

The loan from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), combined with $200 million from the Development Bank of Southern Africa, will modernise the 1 300-kilometre rail corridor connecting the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Angola's Atlantic coast.
The Benguela line runs from Luau, on the Angola-DRC border, to the Lobito port, providing a crucial export route for copper and cobalt, minerals essential for renewable energy and electronics manufacturing.

The investment will upgrade rail tracks, purchase new locomotives, and expand port facilities. The DFC projects these improvements will increase Lobito's capacity tenfold to 4.6 million metric tons annually and reduce transportation costs by up to 30%.

This represents the DFC's largest single loan in Africa, signalling a strategic pivot in US-Africa relations under the Trump administration.

The timing is significant: just weeks after Trump helped broker a peace agreement between the DRC and Rwanda, ending a conflict rooted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the US is positioning itself to access the region's mineral wealth.

The DRC holds over 50% of global cobalt reserves and produces more than 70% of the world's cobalt. Chinese companies currently control approximately 80% of the DRC's critical mineral production and dominate global processing.

The Trump administration has explicitly framed its Africa strategy as "trade not aid," prioritizing commercial partnerships centred on critical minerals.

This railway project directly competes with China's $1.4 billion investment in the rival Tanzania-Zambia railway corridor, announced earlier this year.