Cape Town convention highlights rising tensions over U.S. strikes to safe uncommon earth offers in Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — President Trump’s push to create a critical minerals trading bloc is forcing African nations to take sides in a widening geopolitical contest over resources essential to the global economy.

The Trump administration has made reducing Chinese dominance of critical mineral supply chains a national security priority. 

While some African countries have quietly aligned themselves more closely with China, the Trump approach to Africa has earned the U.S. new allies, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But the growing tensions between the U.S.-aligned nations and the rest of the continent boiled over this week when South Africa’s minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, accused his Congolese counterpart of “selling out, or words to that effect,” according to the Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper.

The accusation reportedly came during an exchange that took place behind closed doors at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town. The annual event is the most important event in the African Mining calendar and pumps millions into the local economy.

Louis Watum Kabamba, the DRC’s minister of Industry Development, responded calmly, onlookers told the reporters later, explaining to the international group that the deal with the Trump administration was a bilateral one that benefited both parties and was in line with the DRC’s national security. 

A reporter for The Washington Times outside the closed session noted that Mr. Kabamba appeared unrattled and stopped to take photos with attendees as he left the meeting at the Mining Indaba.

Just days earlier, on Saturday, South Africa’s president announced that it would withdraw its 700-strong contingent serving in the eastern Congo as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force meant to counter M23 rebels and other insurgents in the tropical borderlands region.

It was precisely concern over those groups that led the DRC to sign a deal with the U.S. last year in an agreement that promised U.S. access to critical minerals in exchange for U.S. support for unspecified infrastructure projects and help in bringing peace to the DRC.

In line with that agreement, Mr. Trump oversaw the Dec. 4 signing of the Washington Accords between Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Rwanda is seen as the key backer of the M23, the largest and most-established rebel movement in Eastern DRC.

Analysts say the dispute between Pretoria and Kinshasa at the South African gathering reflects a broader shift in how mineral diplomacy is now intertwined with global power politics. Indaba attendees told The Washington Times that African countries are increasingly worried about balancing their relationships with Beijing and Washington.

“Minister Mantashe’s remarks and recent regional developments show how critical mineral deals are increasingly about geopolitical positioning as well,” said Nomvula M, a South African mining engineer and analyst who attended the Indaba, “the spat between the two comes in the context of U.S. efforts to create a critical minerals trading bloc.”

Washington hosted the first-ever Critical Minerals Ministerial organized by the U.S. State Department last week. The event welcomed delegations from 54 countries. For the Trump administration, the goal of a U.S.-brokered bloc of mining countries is counterbalancing China’s control of critical mineral supply chains. African countries in attendance included the Democratic Republic of Congo — but not South Africa. 

“South Africa has positioned itself as a regional hub for mining and processing critical minerals. While there are challenges in the business process here, the country is more industrialized than its neighbors and has a globally renowned mining sector,” said Adrian Joseph, a minerals expert at the Africa Policy Research Institute think tank. South Africa has the largest mines and platinum deposits in the world, two minerals listed. If not for geopolitical tensions, it stands to reason they would be working together.”

South Africa’s criticism of the DRC’s move to align with the United States comes at a post-apartheid low point for relations with Washington. 

The Trump administration launched  Mission South Africa in February of last year to allow White South Africans refugees (primarily Afrikaners) to resettle in the United States. The South African government and many independent researchers have rejected the characterization of killings of White farmers as a “White genocide.”  They have instead put forward that attacks on isolated farms are part of a broader crime trend rather than racially motivated.

While the issue has received massive global media attention, the Trump administration is far more concerned about Pretoria’s alignment with China and its role in BRICS — an international grouping of countries pushing for alternatives to the U.S. controlled global financial system. BRICS, originally an association of emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — expanded in 2024 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Last month, South Africa joined naval exercises that involved Iran and Russia off the coast of Cape Town despite public condemnation from the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Pretoria alleged that Iranian participation in those maneuvers took place only because of the South African National Defense Force and Defense Minister Angie Motshekga.

“Permitting Iranian military forces to operate in South African waters — or going to Tehran and expressing solidarity — isn’t ‘non-alignment’: it’s choosing to stand with a regime that brutally represses its people and engages in terrorism,” the U.S. Embassy said on X.