As Washington Builds Mineral Alliances, Pretoria Sits It Out

When Washington hosted its 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial last week, 54 nations gathered to confront a strategic challenge facing the United States (US): China’s dominant position in global critical mineral supply chains. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was there, so were Zambia, Guinea, Kenya, Morocco, and Sierra Leone.

South Africa was not.

Critical minerals are the basic materials used in everything from batteries and energy systems to defence equipment and advanced manufacturing. China currently accounts for roughly 60% of global mine production and close to 90% of processing capacity for these minerals, a dominance that gives Beijing significant strategic leverage over global supply chains.

Washington has moved with striking speed to close the gap. In just the past six months, it has marshalled more than $30 billion in letters of interest, loans, and financing support for critical mineral projects worldwide, with 11 new bilateral frameworks signed during the Ministerial alone.

The gathering marked a missed opportunity for Pretoria. South Africa holds vast reserves of platinum group metals, manganese, chrome, and vanadium. These are minerals essential for batteries, hydrogen energy, defence equipment, and advanced manufacturing. Coupled with Africa’s most industrialised mining and processing base, from smelters to ports and skilled labour, it should make South Africa an obvious strategic partner for the US as it builds critical mineral supply chains.

However, over the past year, relations between Pretoria and Washington have frayed across multiple fronts, from diplomatic disputes and geopolitical positioning to defence alignments and public rhetoric, with Pretoria adopting an ideological posture that aligns it with America’s adversaries.

Well-placed officials in Washington told The Common Sense that they would have liked to have South Africa at the Ministerial.

However, the process of trying to negotiate even a basic set of trade agreements with the country had been so fraught and laborious that the Americans just saw no point in even inviting them.

The clearest illustration of Washington’s intent to gain a foothold on critical minerals sits in Central Africa. Washington is preparing to commit $600 million as part of a roughly $1.8 billion transaction to acquire a 40% stake in two of the DRC’s major copper and cobalt mines. Washington has also approved more than $540 million to refurbish the railway linking the DRC to Angola’s Atlantic port at Lobito. This follows US involvement in brokering a peace deal between the Congo and Rwanda late last year.

When this level of capital is deployed into a country long defined by conflict and corruption, it tells you everything about priority. America is serious about locking in supply.

The Congo deal is also emblematic of a broader shift in US posture in Africa. Under the Trump administration, policy has moved away from an aid-anchored engagement model toward a transactional, deal-driven, mutually beneficial framework built around trade, infrastructure, and strategic resources.

Even the diplomatic architecture is changing. Historically, US missions across Africa operated heavily through aid, development programming, and social justice-focused agendas. But that posture is shifting. An African analyst who has worked closely with US embassies across the continent told The Common Sense that recent diplomatic appointments increasingly come from military and corporate backgrounds. Ambassadors are being assessed less on aid disbursement and more on the commercial partnerships and strategic deals they can secure.

As these agreements are struck and millions in capital deployed, South Africa appears locked in a deteriorating bilateral posture. That will again have been exacerbated last week when South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa used his State of the Nation Address to launch barbs at Washington.

It does not have to be this way. With greater intentionality, Pretoria could leverage its vast mineral endowment to anchor a minerals and energy trade compact with the US, structured to secure long-term capital inflows.

The US is clearly serious about locking in supply and, in the process, is signalling that Africa now has a pathway into American markets built on trade, infrastructure, and strategic partnership.