Africa Has the Minerals. China Controls the Chokepoints. Can America Build the Whole Chain?

Highlights

• Brookings Institution calls for coordinated U.S. public finance, loans, equity, and insurance to build a long-term U.S.-Africa critical minerals partnership.
• China's advantage stems not just from mining but from decades of integrated investment in African resources, infrastructure, and downstream processing.
• REEx's Great Powers Era 2.0 thesis demands tighter control over the full rare earth value chain: separation, metals, alloys, magnets, qualification, and provenance.
• African nations increasingly reject the role of raw-material exporters, supporting local value addition that could weaken China's processing monopoly.
• A Western-backed African mine or separation plant can still feed a Chinese-controlled downstream system without full chain accountability.

Brookings, an American think tank, correctly argues that America cannot secure critical minerals without Africa (opens in a new tab), coordinated public finance, local processing, political-risk protection, and durable partnerships. Rare Earth Exchanges® broadly agrees. The difference is emphasis: Brookings presents a cross-mineral investment framework, while the REEx Great Powers Era 2.0™ thesis demands tighter control over complete strategic value chains—especially rare earth separation, metals, alloys, magnets, qualification, and provenance.

Brookings Maps the Battlefield. REEx Traces the Chokepoints.

Africa’s mineral wealth is no longer peripheral to American security. A new Brookings Institution report argues that Washington should coordinate loans, grants, equity, insurance, stockpiling, technical assistance, and private capital through a long-term U.S.-Africa critical minerals strategy. Its assessment is serious and largely correct: China’s advantage rests not merely on mining, but on decades of integrated investment in African resources, infrastructure, and processing.

More Than a Race for Rocks

Brookings explicitly recognizes that African countries increasingly reject the role of raw-material exporter. It supports local value addition and midstream processing, reasoning that African facilities could reduce costs, deepen local support, and weaken China’s processing monopoly. The report also appropriately prioritizes rare earths, cobalt, lithium, and graphite because China controls dominant shares of their processing.

That means the report does not simply advocate opening more mines. Our earlier characterization required refinement.

Where the REEx Lens Goes Further

Brookings offers a broad investment-policy framework across multiple minerals. It does not, however, fully define the tighter mine-to-magnet controls required for rare earth security.

Under the REEx Great Powers Era 2.0™ thesis, resilience requires coordinated control from resource and beneficiation through separation, individual oxides, metals, alloys, magnet production, customer qualification, logistics, and digital provenance. A Western-backed African mine—or even a separation plant—can still feed a Chinese-controlled downstream system.

Brookings identifies the strategic direction. REEx sharpens the execution test: Who controls each conversion step, and can the finished material be independently traced and qualified?

Profile

The Brookings Institution is one of the world's oldest and most influential public policy think tanks. Founded in 1916 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., Brookings is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that produces analysis on economics, foreign policy, governance, technology, and global development. Its scholars frequently testify before Congress, advise policymakers across administrations of both political parties, and publish research that shapes debates on U.S. and international policy. While generally regarded as center to center-left in orientation, Brookings is widely respected for rigorous, evidence-based research and remains an important voice on issues including geopolitics, trade, national security, and critical minerals.