In a bid to reduce reliance on Chinese dominance and mitigate Russian influence in critical mineral markets, the United States is eyeing Africa as a key player, Wally Adeyemo, the US Deputy Treasury Secretary, told Western media.
"Africa is going to play a huge role," he said. "A lot of critical minerals are located here."
Acknowledging China's substantial investments in African mineral projects, Adeyemo highlighted collaboration with G7 allies to address "infrastructure gap" on the continent.
"We are talking to our European allies ... about some of the actions we can take using trade tools to make sure that a country like China can't flood the market with things like electric vehicles and solar panels," the official claimed.
Chinese investments in Africa encompass extensive copper and cobalt ventures in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia, alongside lithium projects in Zimbabwe.
The official also placed high hopes on South Africa to replace Russia in the supply of palladium, a platinum group metal used in catalytic converters. According to the US Geological Survey, 32% of US imports of the metal between 2019 and 2022 came from Russia.
"South Africa has a real opportunity to help supply the global economy," Adeyemo alleged. "And it gives us the ability to take other actions to hold Russia accountable."
Following Russia's launch of a special military operation in Ukraine in 2022, Western countries have imposed sweeping sanctions against Moscow, capping oil prices, seizing and confiscating Russian citizens' property, and embargoing hundreds of goods, including some metals and minerals.
Overall, the United States has imposed some 3,500 anti-Russia sanctions on individuals and entities since the start of the special military operation in February 2022. However, Russian platinum group metals were almost unaffected by their sanctions.
Russian officials have pointed out that Russia is solving all the problems the collective West has created to contain and weaken the country's economy, but the West lacks the courage to recognize that the sanctions regime has failed.