Africa Pushes Critical Minerals Beyond the Mine ? China Enters Great Powers Era 2.0 With a Massive Head Start

Highlights

• Africa has 64 known REE deposits across 12 key countries, with exploration spending up 112% to $34.8 million in 2024.
• China extended zero tariffs to all 53 African diplomatic partners effective May 2026, deepening its economic pull on African mineral exports.
• Competing infrastructure corridors—the U.S.-backed Lobito and China-linked TAZARA—represent rival industrial operating systems, not just transport routes.
• REEx identifies five investor questions: who finances, processes, moves, receives, and qualifies the final product—revealing where real strategic value lies.
• Africa can leverage great-power competition to demand processing, jobs, and technology transfer rather than repeating an extraction-only model.