During his first administration, President-elect Donald Trump made clear his disdain for Africa when, during a January 2018 meeting with senators, he dismissed much of the continent as “shithole countries.” If he wishes his second-term legacy to roll back China’s rise against U.S. interests, Trump can no longer afford to ignore the continent.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt will be to the economy of the coming decades what Saudi Arabia’s oil was to the late 20th century. Cobalt is essential for the lithium-ion batteries that power the technology upon which the modern, industrialized world depends. The DRC also has tantalum necessary for everything from mobile phones and televisions to inkjet printers, digital cameras, and medical devices, and the germanium essential for the semiconductor industry. Add rare earths, such as copper, gold, diamonds, and uranium, into the mix, and the true possible wealth of the DRC becomes obvious. The DRC is home to almost $24 trillion in resources, much of it untapped.
Nor is the DRC alone. Somaliland, the Western-oriented democracy seeking international recognition of its statehood, has gas, oil, and rare earths. Mozambique’s liquefied natural gas discovery catapults the southern African country above Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, and the Republic of Congo are also resource rich.
Simply put, the defeat of China on the continent begins with wresting away the DRC. While the State Department praised DRC President Felix Tshisekedi as a Democrat during Trump’s first term, he is a dictator and a stooge for China. His brother and de facto national security adviser Jacques Tshisekedi may try to lobby the Trump team to the contrary, but there is no obstructing the contracts the president gives Beijing, the weaponry he purchases from them, or the bribes and kickbacks Congolese allege he takes. Trump may admire strongmen, but Felix Tshisekedi is not a competent one, just a despot whose continued tenure is inimical to U.S. interests. By opposing constitutional revision, Trump will align himself with both most Congolese and the Catholic Church.
On Dec. 10, 2024, Secretary of State Antony Blinken designated four Congolese nationals for the murder of a U.S. citizen. Blinken’s successor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), should go further and designate Felix Tshisekedi and his cronies with Global Magnitsky Act Sanctions and target all those who deal with China’s military or its mineral conglomerates.
President Joe Biden’s Africa team operated without any abiding consideration of U.S. national interests. There is simply no other way to explain how it could so favor a China and Turkey-oriented Somalia over Taiwan-allied Somaliland. With Russia sweeping across the Sahel, China interfering with U.S. operations at its base in Djibouti, and the Houthi interfering with shipping through the Bab el Mandeb, Somaliland offers the United States a turnkey-ready airfield, one of Africa’s most productive deepwater ports, and a government that took a no-nonsense approach to both Yemeni arms smugglers and Islamic State terrorists.
Sensing Blinken’s weakness, China began funding insurgents and terrorists to attack the rare earth-rich territory. Trump must say enough. He should recognize that Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud uses the billions of dollars the U.S. government pays him to do Beijing’s bidding. Somali irredentists belong in Mogadishu, not in America’s Foreign Service or the U.S. Congress.
Not everything Biden touches is wrong. The U.S. investment in the Lobito Corridor, a project to shift export trade to Angola’s Atlantic coast and away from Chinese-run ports, deserves bipartisan support, but Trump should go on the offensive. Rwanda’s efforts to liberate northern Mozambique from Islamic State-affiliated extremists deserve praise and investment, not handwringing motivated human rights groups upset that Rwandan President Paul Kagame refuses to accept them as de facto colonial commissars and unabashedly chooses capitalism. If America is going to win in Africa, it must support allies, not bash them.
Africa has been a backwater for too long. Those days are over. To cede Africa to China is to guarantee Chinese industries can hobble their American counterparts and to ensure the Chinese military has the material to seize a qualitative military edge over the U.S. “Shithole” countries or not, America’s future depends on what Trump’s team does in Africa.
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Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
