Virtus Minerals, a U.S.-based firm backed by the Trump administration, is inching closer to acquiring the assets of Chemaf, a troubled copper and cobalt miner that works in the southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to media reports. If the deal is approved by the DRC’s state mining company, Gécamines, it would be one of the most significant acquisitions of extractive rights in the region by a U.S. corporation since the two countries signed a “strategic partnership agreement” for critical mineral access in December. The agreement is part of a push by the U.S. to reassert itself in global critical mineral supply chains, which have been dominated by Chinese firms in recent years. At a diplomatic summit convened by the U.S. in February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that securing access to those minerals was a “priority for this administration at the highest order.” With its vast reserves of cobalt, copper, tungsten and other minerals that are vital to advanced industries like artificial intelligence and clean energy, the DRC is center stage in this effort, and has been a recent focus of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in Africa. The partnership agreement was announced in Washington just a day before a ceremony was held at the White House between DRC President Félix Tshishekedi and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to cement a U.S.-brokered peace deal between the two countries. In his comments at the event, U.S. President Donald Trump made it clear his administration’s involvement in the deal — which has…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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