During the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s 1996 World Friendship Tour, which included Africa, he warned the continent against dependence on Western powers, including America, while appearing on Pan African Daily TV.
Fresh off the success of the historic 1995 Million Man March, Minister Farrakhan stated, “This is Africa’s Dilemma. You’re parading yourself before the world as international beggars when you gave civilization to the world.
Your problem is not America, your problem is not Israel, your problem is not Britain, your problem is disunity and your dependency on others to do for you what you could do for yourself.” He pointed out that “the minerals are here, the minds are here,” but that both are being exported abroad to serve others, not Africa.
In the Western world, including the United States, a renewed “scramble for Africa,” to secure critical minerals for their energy transition has begun. America and its European counterparts are looking to Africa to counter the dominance of China.
“Even if the U.S. were to dramatically improve prospects for domestic mining, there is no way to meet growing global demand without a larger and more diverse supply chain.
That is why the United States has begun to form plurilateral and bilateral partnerships and extended tax credits and subsidies for mineral development in closely allied countries, reported the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a study titled: “Prospects for U.S. Minerals Engagement with Africa.”
The fact that Africa is “well-endowed with critical mineral” reserves but had been excluded from partnership trade deals and other discussions, has Western democracies playing catch up.
“According to internal calculations, the continent has roughly 85 percent of the world’s manganese, 80 percent of the world’s platinum and chromium, 47 percent of cobalt, 21 percent of graphite, and six percent of copper.
Despite such reserves, the mining exploration budget in Sub-Saharan Africa was the second lowest in the world—roughly half that of Latin America, Australia, and Canada,” the study pointed out.
“Strengthening U.S. commercial diplomacy with the African continent should be a key priority in a minerals strategy. Historically, the United States has not maintained strong commercial diplomacy ties with the continent, with Kenya and South Africa being the exceptions.
This stands out in contrast that with Chinese efforts (with its Belt and Roads development initiative) that began decades ago,” reported CSIS.
Africa’s contribution to electric vehicles is substantial. Five critical minerals used in making lithium-ion batteries include lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite.
Africa is home to “approximately 21 percent of graphite reserves; 47 percent of cobalt reserves; and 85 percent of manganese reserves. It currently has four percent of the world’s lithium—but this is expected to increase to 12 percent over the next decade owing to discoveries of new reserves.” In addition, the continent has five percent of the world’s nickel reserves, noted CSIS.
This isn’t the U.S.’s first extraction of Africa’s raw material reserves. In fact, the U.S. Marine Corps was already in the Congo doing reconnaissance and protecting U.S. and European colonial interests during World War II. This led to the creation of the Shinkolobwe mine for the extracting of uranium which was later used for the making of the atomic bomb.
According to Dr. Walter Rodney’s 1972 book, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” economic partition and repartition of Africa was going on all the time because the proportions of the spoils that went to different capitalist countries kept changing.
Special mention must be made of the U.S.A. because its share of the benefits from Africa was constantly increasing throughout the colonial period. America’s profits rose from $28 million in 1913 to over $517 million in 1954.
Non-monetary benefits were far more valuable to the U.S. capitalist economy. The need for strategic raw materials for industry and the country’s military machine ruled the day.
Raw materials for making rubber, that came from Liberia, created U.S. corporate giant Firestone. The rubber and tire manufacturer became a “great friend and business colleague of Henry Ford.
Liberian rubber turned the town of Akron, Ohio, into a powerful rubber tire manufacturing center, and the tires then went over to the even bigger automobile works of Ford in Detroit,” wrote Dr. Rodney.
It’s important to note that China’s current dominant position as a supplier of many critical minerals has been years in the making and won’t be upended overnight. In addition, Namibia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and other countries, like Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali are in the process of eventually following suit.
These countries “have banned the export of unprocessed critical minerals, including lithium. Zimbabwe has the sixth-largest lithium reserves in the world and largest in Africa,” reported CSIS.
“Namibia has a heavy rare earth operation that produces 2,000 tons per year of rare earth oxides and has rich deposits of two of the most valuable heavy rare earth metals—dysprosium and terbium.
Ghana recently discovered commercial quantities of lithium. These countries also have quantities of cobalt, manganese, nickel, and graphite,” the study noted.
Nigeria banned the export of raw ore in 2022. In the words of the country’s natural resource minister, “end the plundering of the continent for raw materials” by incentivizing local processing or refining before exporting …,” noted Global Policy Watch.
