Cobalt Competition: How America’s Retreat is Rewriting Central Africa’s Critical Mineral Future

A Shifting World for Critical Minerals

For much of the last century, Africa’s vast resource wealth was a battleground for foreign powers. Today, cobalt, the metal essential for batteries and electric vehicles, has become the latest protagonist of the green transition. More than 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (USGS, 2024). Yet what is striking now is not just who wants it, but who is stepping back.

The United States, once the self-proclaimed guarantor of open markets, is turning inward. Its isolationist drift, exemplified by protectionist trade measures, reduced overseas investment, and political gridlock, has created an opening. China, the European Union, India, and the Gulf states are rushing to fill the void, and African governments are learning to bargain harder than ever.

America’s Isolationism Creates a Vacuum

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was crafted to reduce U.S. reliance on adversarial suppliers by boosting domestic clean-tech manufacturing and ensuring that key minerals such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel come from allied or “friendly” countries (White House, 2022). In theory, this should make the United States a more attractive partner for African mineral producers, who could benefit from privileged access to the vast American EV and battery market.

But the reality has been less straightforward. The law’s rules are complex, demanding detailed accountability of supply chains and strict compliance with environmental and labor standards. Financing channels meant to back U.S. projects overseas, through institutions like the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), have moved slowly.

As a result, American companies often find themselves outpaced by competitors; arriving late to negotiations, losing ground to faster-moving Chinese firms, and struggling to reassure African governments that Washington’s commitments will materialise (CRS, 2025).

Africa’s Bargaining Power Rises

This decline of a single hegemony brings opportunity. Zambia and the DRC, for instance, signed a deal in 2022 to establish a “battery corridor,” aiming to export not just ore but processed materials (UNECA, 2024). Namibia and Zimbabwe have restricted raw lithium exports, insisting that companies invest in domestic beneficiation (Reuters, 2023).

In earlier decades, such moves might have drawn swift U.S. pushback. Today, African governments calculate that Washington is distracted, while Brussels and Beijing are too divided to enforce uniform standards. The result is new bargaining leverage: a multipolar marketplace where cobalt, lithium, and graphite can be exchanged for infrastructure, industrial partnerships, or even geopolitical recognition. 

Fragmented Supply Chains, Heightened Scrutiny

The flip side of America’s retreat is fragmentation. The U.S. and EU are insisting on strict environmental and social governance (ESG) standards for any minerals entering their markets. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act mandates due diligence and sets sourcing targets (European Commission, 2023). China, by contrast, remains more flexible, prioritising volume and price.

This split has real-world consequences. Artisanal mining in the DRC, which supplies up to 20 per cent of global cobalt, has long raised alarms over child labour and unsafe conditions (Amnesty International, 2021). Western companies face shareholder and regulatory pressure to trace every ton, while Chinese buyers can often absorb the risk. Without U.S. leadership to harmonise standards, Africa’s cobalt flows are diverging into rival markets.

Security Vulnerabilities

America’s lighter footprint also reshapes the security landscape. The DRC’s eastern provinces remain unstable, with insurgent groups exploiting mineral routes. Armed conflict killed more than 2,200 civilians in 2021, rising to over 3,000 in 2022 (ACLED, 2023).

In the past, U.S. military or diplomatic engagement might have sought to stabilise such zones—not always effectively, but visibly. Now, African states are more often left to negotiate with private security firms, regional blocs, or new partners like Russia’s Wagner-linked entities (Fasanotti, 2022). This patchwork response risks entrenching conflict economies, further complicating the flow of critical minerals.

The risk is then twofold; supply chains become more vulnerable to disruption at chokepoints, whether mining sites to export hubs in southern DRC, or transport corridors like the Lobito railway. For cobalt buyers in the U.S. and Europe, this means exposure not just to price volatility but to reputational risks, as human rights abuses become inseparable from the sourcing of critical minerals.

This divergence in strategy is likely to deepen the multipolar fragmentation of cobalt supply chains and cement Africa’s conflict zones as critical battlegrounds in the race for energy transition minerals.

The Multipolar Future

By 2030, Africa’s critical mineral sector is unlikely to be dominated by one power. Instead, a pattern is emerging: Chinese midstream control, European regulatory pressure, Gulf petrodollars backing new ventures, and African governments leveraging regional corridors to negotiate better deals.

The U.S, absent a coherent outward strategy, risks becoming a secondary player and dependent on allies and subject to price and compliance shocks. This is not simply a matter of prestige. Without a credible role in Africa’s cobalt economy, Washington’s wider EV and battery ambitions will face bottlenecks, delays, and higher costs (IEA, 2021).

Africa in the Driver’s Seat

The race for cobalt reveals a deeper truth about the energy transition: the world is no longer organised around a single hegemony. America’s isolationism has accelerated this trend, ceding influence to rivals and raising Africa’s own agency.

For investors and policymakers, the lesson is clear. Africa’s mineral wealth will be shaped not by unilateral U.S. dominance, but by a messy contest of competing policies, contested standards, and assertive governments. In this fragmented future, success will depend less on controlling the supply outright and more on building resilient partnerships that recognise Africa not as a passive source of raw materials, but as a negotiating power in its own right.

Bibliography

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