The principle of permanent sovereignty of nations over natural resources has anchored the international economic order since the United Nations adopted it in 1962. It underpins the basic bargain upon which mining companies invest billions: that sovereign States hold authority over their mineral endowments and that this authority will be exercised through predictable legal and regulatory frameworks. Investors pour capital into exploration, development and extraction on the assumption that the licences, permits and offtake agreements they negotiate with host governments will be respected – not just by those governments, but by the international community.
Once taken for granted, that assumption is now in doubt. For the mining industry, this presents an existential question: what does security of mineral title actually mean in a world where the most powerful state openly rebels against the rules-based order? The message to resource-rich nations is unmistakable: international institutions offer no protection when strategic interests collide.
The United States shut down USAID in early 2025, cutting billions in foreign aid affecting African countries most acutely. In the DRC specifically, funding cuts of $351.7 million over six months have resulted in a severe reduction in food assistance, with 28 million Congolese facing food insecurity. These are not unrelated policy choices.
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They constitute a deliberate recalibration of American leverage in resource diplomacy. The United States was, by its own admission, behind the curve in critical mineral supply chains. China spent decades building dominance: it now refines 90% of the world’s rare earth elements and controls 60-70% of lithium and cobalt processing capacity.
Beijing bankrolled exploration abroad, subsidised domestic smelting, forced technology transfer and deployed export quotas as tools of industrial leverage. Washington, on the other hand, having neglected mineral-producing markets for decades, now faces a stark choice: compete on commercial terms from a position of disadvantage or disrupt the supply chain frameworks themselves. It has chosen the latter.
The Critical Minerals for Security and Peace Deal between the United States and the DRC exemplifies this new approach. President Trump hailed it on Truth Social as “A Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World.” The Strategic Partnership Agreement grants US persons “right of first offer” for Strategic Asset Reserve Projects, requires the DRC to provide preferential fiscal, tax and regulatory incentives for American investors and mandates that the DRC and its state-owned enterprises provide US persons with first right of offer on marketed critical minerals destined for export. The Lobito Corridor – the rail infrastructure connecting the DRC and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic coast is designated a strategic priority.
The agreement stipulates that within five years, at least 50% of copper volumes, 90% of zinc concentrate and 30% of cobalt that the DRC and its state-owned enterprises elect to commercialise pursuant to their equity and contractual marketing rights over production from certain partnerships, must be exported via the Sakania-Lobito Corridor. The United States has signalled its intention to mobilise financing through development finance institutions, export credit agencies and multilateral development banks to ensure the corridor’s success. From a pure supply-chain perspective, the logic is sound.
The United States needs secure access to the minerals that underpin its green energy transition and defence apparatus. But the terms of the agreement and the conduct of the parties since its signing, raise fundamental questions about whether this is partnership or extraction. Five months before the peace agreement was signed, Trump announced the closure of USAID, placing half a million people in the eastern DRC at risk.
The August 2025 Treasury sanctions on entities linked to armed group violence and the sale of critical minerals, whilst ostensibly targeting those fuelling conflict, underscore the complex environment in which mining companies must now operate. Congolese Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege has called the deal a “scandalous surrender of sovereignty” that validates foreign occupation and exploitation. Congolese analyst Kambale Musavuli characterised it as “Berlin Conference 2.0” – a reference that requires no elaboration for anyone familiar with the history of resource extraction on the African continent.
The DRC entered this agreement from a position of desperation. With M23 rebels having seized Goma and Bukavu and threatening to advance on Kinshasa, regime survival and not national interest drove the calculus. The United States, by contrast, approached the table with substantial leverage: the DRC needed diplomatic and security support; the US needed to counter China’s dominance in critical mineral supply chains.
Mining agreements have traditionally contemplated force majeure events: natural disasters, wars, civil unrest, acts of government. But the drafters of such clauses assumed a relatively stable international order in which sovereign nations respected each other’s legal frameworks and in which treaties provided meaningful protection.
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