The Guardian view on the scramble for critical minerals: while powers vie for access, labourers die | Editorial
WWhen Donald Trump recently boasted about ending the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – even though fighting persists in the DRC, at a terrible human cost – he made it clear that his goals went beyond the long-awaited Nobel Peace Prize.
“They said to me, ‘Please, please, we’d love for you to come take our minerals.’ What we will do,” added the American president. Now he’s following through. Last Monday, he launched a new strategic reserve plan, “Project Vault,” worth nearly $12 billion. Two days later, JD Vance hosted a summit to create a critical minerals trade zone.
The United States – and others – are trying to counter the dominance of Beijing, which has been much quicker to understand the strategic importance of these resources. The key to his plan is a deal presented as a way to bring wealth to the DRC and create incentives for peace. Few are convinced on the ground. The deal does nothing to help the DRC build its transformation capabilities and requires it to freeze its tax and regulatory regimes for a decade. The EU likes to present itself as a higher position. But in December, Parliament and Council agreed to relax key due diligence rules.
The DRC’s incredible resources have been violently plundered for centuries for the benefit of the richest nations and a handful of individuals on the ground. Four-fifths of the population live below the poverty line. Extraction has been synonymous with exploitation and danger. The week before the Washington rally, at least 200 artisanal miners were crushed or suffocated when a coltan mine collapsed in Rubaya, eastern DRC. It became, according to a survivor, a tomb.
As journalist Nicolas Niarchos writes in his new book The Elements of Power, “technology profiteers, politicians and battery manufacturers made a trade-off: cleaner energy at home for pollution and suffering elsewhere.” Meeting climate goals will require much higher production than today of materials such as lithium and cobalt. But environmental despoliation, expulsion of communities and exploitation of workers, including children, are not the inevitable results of the necessary shift away from fossil fuels. And the NGO Global Witness suggests that Mr Trump’s thirst for minerals is best explained by their use in military technology. Tantalum, extracted from coltan, is essential for jet engines and missiles as well as smartphones and laptops.
Just as increasing conflict helps drive demand, demand fuels conflict. Rubaya is among the swaths of land seized by M23 rebels in eastern DRC in recent years, with mines there generating around $800,000 a month, funding the insurgency. The group is backed by Rwanda (although Kigali denies this) and experts say Rwanda is now selling far more coltan than it can produce, with smuggling across the border reaching unprecedented levels. The EU minerals deal with Kigali has been rightly criticized.
Natural resources are increasingly linked to security policies across the continent, the African Policy Research Institute recently highlighted, through Russian private military companies, the US promise of peace mediation and China’s infrastructure-for-resources model. His report suggests that the demand for resources could give African states leverage to negotiate more equitable partnerships that would benefit their populations. But this depends, as the authors note, on institutional strength, regional coordination and transparency in making deals – as well as a determination not to compromise human rights, environmental standards or national sovereignty. The example of the DRC is not encouraging.
