The US said it will back a rare earths project in Madagascar as part of its efforts to chip away at China’s dominance of the critical minerals sector across Africa.
Washington’s Development Finance Corporation will commit up to $4.8 million to the Ampasindava project, paving the way for potential future funding. The site produces material used to make magnets that are essential for defense manufacturing, which the US is keen to secure.
The Trump administration’s expansion of critical minerals investments across Africa is part of its so-called trade-not-aid push. And though experts said the US will almost certainly not catch up with China, by far the leading foreign investor in the sector, some noted Washington’s new approach to Africa’s resources is welcome after years of paternalistic foreign policy. “There is definitely a sentiment now that the Americans are back, in a big way, and in a way that means ‘let’s talk business,’” Chatham House senior researcher Christopher Vandome told Semafor.
