Bloomberg, 9 July 2025
By Kamailoudini Tagba and Akayla Gardner
Trump’s Africa summit heats up rivalry for continent’s resources
US President Donald Trump’s meeting with African leaders shows a sense of urgency in competing for scarce resources with China, which recently lifted tariffs on imports from the continent.
The president told his guests on Wednesday that the US was “shifting from aid to trade” to deepen economic ties, and suggested they buy US arms to reinforce that pivot to transactional diplomacy. The leaders, from Senegal, Gabon, Liberia, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau, are visiting Washington for a three-day summit that ends on Friday.
Trump’s invitation to the presidents from the West and Central African nations — which hold deposits of critical and other minerals — highlights the US president’s struggle to reduce reliance on China for metals used in semiconductors, smartphones, clean energy and medical technology.
The African leaders stressed that the minerals should be used to develop local industry and not just extracted and sent abroad, and that they’re open to other suitors in the absence of US interest.
“Much needs to be done before the US gets the situation it would prefer — of US companies mining key minerals in Africa and shipping them home,” said François Conradie at Oxford Economics Africa, who doesn’t see the US enjoying a clear advantage yet over its rivals.
Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema “made it plain that African countries would insist on local beneficiation, and that companies from other countries would also be welcome,” he said.
Gabon is the world’s second-biggest producer of manganese, used to harden steel products, and has massive deposits of high-grade iron ore.
While the five countries rank among Africa’s smaller economies — with a combined gross domestic product of about $75 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund — they’re rich in minerals and have the potential to produce far more than they do today.
Trump’s lunch with the leaders at the White House on Wednesday may also fuel concern about the administration’s neglect of the region after it gutted the United States Agency for International Development putting healthcare on the continent at risk.
He urged the leaders to keep their remarks brief, saying he had to leave their gathering for another event.
“Maybe we have to go quicker than this because we have a whole schedule,” Trump said.
And asked if he planned to visit the continent, the president demurred, saying he would like to plan a trip, but needed “to see what the schedule is like.”
He also complimented the leader of Liberia — where the official language is English — on his speaking.
“Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where in Liberia?,” Trump asked. “It’s beautiful English. I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well.”
Still, the summit offers the opportunity to spur deals in a region where the US is looking for more business opportunities, even as its cuts to foreign aid and other programs raise worries that Washington is losing ground to Chinese influence.
“The Trump administration’s focus on commercial diplomacy stands to gain traction,” Manji Cheto, a senior advisor at Teneo, wrote in a client note. “Unlike its predecessor, which conditioned assistance on democratic reforms, the current US approach emphasizes shared security interests and economic cooperation.”
Sourcing key critical minerals has been a priority for the Trump administration as he seeks to reduce US reliance on China, which is dominant in the industry, and used rare earth materials as a bargaining chip in trade talks between the world’s largest economies earlier this year.
Rare earths are used in some of the world’s most critical industries, in products as varied as semiconductors, smartphones, clean energy and medical technology.
Before the talks, Liberia signed a $1.8 billion agreement with Ivanhoe Atlantic Inc., majority owned by a company founded by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. Chairman Robert Friedland. The deal allows the US miner to rehabilitate and use the country’s railway to transport iron ore from neighboring Guinea for export.
Security issues are also high on the summit’s agenda. Four of the countries — excluding Gabon — are on the periphery of the unstable Sahel region, and may offer opportunities for cooperation in an area that’s been blighted by a decade-long Islamist insurgency and military coups in recent years.
Trump said he would encourage the countries to “make greater investments in defense, hopefully, of course, buying our equipment.” And he said he would raise the issue of immigration as his administration ramps up deportations of undocumented migrants.
The president also suggested he may exempt the assembled countries from his plans to impose heightened reciprocal tariffs beginning in August, saying the assembled leaders were “friends of mine now.”
That won’t lift the uncertainty over a key US infrastructure initiative to counter Chinese influence in Africa – the Lobito Corridor rail project to link copper mines in southern Africa to an Atlantic port – caused by his 50% levies on the metal.
“This is contradictory on copper and really jeopardises the Lobito project,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa program at Chatham House. “It demonstrates the importance of all parts of the Trump administration coordinating more effectively.”