Washington in a race to fund infrastructure in Africa to process and mine critical minerals as US does not have the capacity on home soil
3-MIN READ3-MINJevans NyabiagePublished: 1:00pm, 9 May 2026The US is shifting strategy to fund local African processing and mining infrastructure after recognising it cannot yet process the critical minerals it is racing to secure from the continent to counter China.Tom Haslett, managing director of policy for critical minerals at the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), said that unlike China, which had “significant industry backing for both processing and downstream manufacturing”, the US and Europe did not yet have that capacity.
This industrial bottleneck means the West currently lacks the capacity to process the very resources it is battling to secure. Washington is shifting its strategy towards favouring local processing in African nations, ramping up investments across the continent.
This is where another American agency, the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), provides early-stage grant funding for feasibility studies to de-risk projects before the DFC moves in to provide large-scale financing and political risk insurance.
