Rich beyond almost all others in critical minerals, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains one of the world's most impoverished and war-torn countries. Weak governance, corruption, and regional security spillovers have enabled multiple armed groups to fight over territory and resource revenues. In the past 30 years, an estimated six million people have died in conflict-related deaths in the eastern provinces of what is the second-largest country in the second-largest continent on Earth.
The former Belgian colony received the lowest grade of D—or ‘Difficult to justify investment'—in the Hard Risk category of Mining Journal's World Risk Insights 2025. The only countries to score lower were the military junta-led and multi-front civil war-ravaged Myanmar and the heavily sanctioned Russia, which is aggressively waging the bloodiest war on the planet. Even so, the lure of the Central African country's minerals is such that strategists in the major power capitals of Washington, Beijing, and Moscow are committed to securing and retaining DRC mining interests.
Caught between armed groups, corrupt governance, and the competing appetites of great powers, the Congolese people have more to gain from transparency, traceability, and accountability in critical minerals supply chains—and more to lose from their absence—than perhaps any other populace on Earth. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); The curious case of the DRC Mining Guard And yet it was frustration, fierce criticism, and fear, not jubilation, that followed news on April 27 of the launch of an initiative to enforce due diligence for the exploited, exposed, and endangered miners across the DRC—the world's largest (by far) producer of cobalt, and among the top for tantalum, copper, tin, and tungsten. The plan, as detailed by the DRC's General Inspectorate of Mines (IGM), would see thousands of paramilitary troops known as the Mining Guard deployed by year's end.
Projected to be 20,000-strong by the end of 2028, the program would be funded by about US$100 million as part of the DRC's strategic partnerships with the US and UAE, it said at the time. Inspector General Rafael Kabengele announced: "The will of the President of the Republic, which we are implementing, is to clean up the entire mining sector of the DRC, by eliminating practices contrary to good governance, transparency, and traceability of minerals".(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();The will of presidents It wasn't the paramilitary's stated objective that drew criticism and concern, but suspicions about the "will of the President" and his apparent transactional dealings with US counterpart Donald Trump. It was the lack of details in the announcement regarding governance structures, legal framework, operational details, and accountability mechanisms.
Jean-Pierre Okenda, executive director of La Sentinelle des Ressources Naturelles—an independent NGO dedicated to improving how the DRC's mineral wealth is managed—was suspicious from the start. "The way the implementation of the agreement is being carried out, through the prioritisation of the creation of a mining guard, reinforces the doubt of the ‘minerals for security' agreement. "It is similar to the Sino-Congolese agreement, which was heavily publicised at the time, but which has not moved Congo forward twenty years later.
"Explain to the Congolese people the motivations, the objectives. Is it to secure American investments, as would be provided in the annexes of the agreement, which have not been published?" he told Congolese mining news outlet Mines.cd on April 28, the day after the announcement.That same day, Washington, via its embassy in the DRC, denied its involvement."The US government is not funding paramilitary groups to guard mines," it said. The DRC's IGM was quick to follow the US's lead, further muddying the initiative's already weak budget transparency, saying the funding would come from "different types of stakeholders" and would "not involve direct funding from any single government".
Transactionalism vs transparencyIn its denial, the US embassy reaffirmed its commitment to the ‘minerals-for-security' DRC strategic partnership agreement, signed last December.And it is frustrations stemming from this partnership that led to such immediate fallout over the claims that US funding was being used for a Congolese paramilitary, Michelle Gavin, an expert from the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), said on May 14. "The Trump administration has made it plain that they have little interest in supporting democratic governance around the world, arguing that internal legitimacy issues can distract from putting America first and are simply none of Washington's business."But the US' eager pursuit of minerals from the politically fragile DRC is being lashed to the political agenda of its current President, Felix Tshisekedi," she said on May 14. Like Trump (even more aggressively so), Tshisekedi has flirted with circumventing domestic democratic conventions and running for a third term.After four years of edging higher on the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Democracy Index, the DRC plateaued in 2025, still firmly rooted in the ‘authoritarian' regime type.
The US, meanwhile, sank to its lowest level since the index began in 2006, further embedding it as a ‘flawed democracy'. It hasn't ranked as a ‘full democracy' since 2015—the year prior to Trump first being elected. Gavin noted a perception within the DRC that Tshisekedi "offers up the country's riches" in exchange for personal favours such as US sanctions on his political enemies.
Nobel Peace Prize-winning Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege told AFP on May 14 that the US's recent dealings with Tshisekedi, including the 2025 US-brokered, failed DRC-Rwanda peace treaty, are more about plundering the country's resources and focused on individual power than on the common good or security. "It is quite clear that, as far as minerals are concerned, shipments are already leaving, but in return, we are not receiving the security we need," he said. The Trump administration's own National Security Strategy (November 2025) details a shift in US Africa policy from an aid-focused relationship to a transactional one that aims for "a good return on investment" in critical minerals.
"When President Trump promised late last year that ‘everybody's going to make a lot of money' as a result of his administration's Central African diplomacy, no one was under the illusion that he meant the populations of the countries where his administration seeks deals," Gavin said. Whatever the case, the DRC's Mining Guard tasked with bringing transparency is off to an opaque start. And the US-DRC strategic partnership agreement is not an outlier.
Up until the Mining Guard announcement on April 27, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) reported the US had, since January 2025, signed at least 20 government-to-government minerals agreements—many, it warned, with implications for corruption risks, resource governance, environmental protections, and the energy transition "not yet fully understood". Greater transparency over the terms, it said, is "essential to ensure these deals serve the public interests". A critical crossroads for minerals supply chainsThe situation highlights a Western contest at the heart of the global critical minerals scramble—between a vision that tends toward accountability, sustainability, and governance frameworks, and one rooted in power, security, and fragmentation.
The Mining Guard's stated objective speaks to the former, while the suspicions about Tshisekedi's true motives and the ill-defined December-announced ‘minerals-for-security' strategic partnership with the US resonate with the latter. Where Trump's critical minerals agenda, uneasy with China's dominance and the US's waning primacy, prioritises speed for meeting defence requirements, rejecting decarbonisation or the vestiges of the international rules-based order, the EU stands as the second-largest economy among the West's liberal-minded old guard. Brussels seeks more of a balance between security and sustainability, defence and decarbonisation.
It is also focused on reducing reliance on China, but its pursuit of the relatively recently adopted policy of strategic autonomy aims to avoid dependence not only on China, but on any hegemony, even if that be the US. There is give-and-take in the tug-of-war across the North Atlantic on the visions for a world built on critical minerals, and neither position is set in stone. But the stakes are high, and the way it plays out could determine the pace and scale of the energy transition, the global balance of power, international trade, and the geopolitical landscape in the century ahead.
The West's current disjointed approach also risks that divergent interests could tip from competition into conflict. As recently as May 30, at the ISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in his keynote speech: "When our interests align, we act together with focused resolve. When our interests diverge, we adjust pragmatically without the drama or the moralising.
I think Western Europe might take note". (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();Greenland prepares for (loss of) Independence DayHegseth's speech harks back to comments Trump made on January 8 in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, covering topics such as Venezuela and his desire to acquire Denmark-controlled Greenland. He was asked if there were any limits to his global powers.
"Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind.
It's the only thing that can stop me," he said. "I don't need international law," he added. This was around the time that the US President was refusing to rule out using military force to acquire Greenland.
While only five months ago, that may feel like a distant fever dream given the pace of the 24-hour news cycle, and Trump's shift in focus to Iran and a de-escalation in rhetoric regarding the giant Arctic island. But ongoing closed-door negotiations have reportedly taken place over the past four months between US, Greenlandic, and Danish officials on the island's future, with concerns that Trump is on the verge of once again flexing the US military's might towards the world's largest island.The framework for doing so isn't expected to align with the DRC situation, nor with the gunboat diplomacy displayed in oil-rich Venezuela or Iran, but there is the distinctive America First angle that prioritises defence and neglects decarbonisation. Greenland is, of course, not the DRC.
Where bilateral detail-scarce government-to-government transactionalism appears to be the move with African authoritarianism, it seems coercive pressure is the order of the day for the Nordic's deeply embedded democracy. A New York Times investigation published on May 18, based on interviews with officials from Greenland, Denmark, and the US, found that the talks, meant to de-escalate Trump's forceful designs on the Arctic island, have failed to do so and have left Greenlandic leaders fearful of what is being proposed. Washington reportedly wants an agreement for US troops to remain on the island indefinitely, even if Greenland gets independence; military expansion; effective veto power on any major investment deals; and cooperation on natural resources.Justus Hansen, a member of Greenland's Parliament, told the NYT that if the US gets everything it wants, there will never be any "real independence".
"We might as well raise our own flag halfway," he said in the investigative piece. Along with losing sovereignty, the Greenlanders also reportedly fear that the US interest in exploring their natural resources might mean pressure to loosen their environmental standards. The NYT reported that the Greenlandic leaders worry that if the conflict with Iran winds down, Trump's aggression will swing back on them.
So imminent that they believe the threat; they've even named dates to be wary of: Trump's birthday, June 14, or potentially the Fourth of July—US Independence Day. Vivian Motzfeldt, Greenland's former foreign minister and member of Parliament, alluding to Trump's so-called Donroe Doctrine—which asserts US dominance in the Western Hemisphere, said: "If he's going to realise his policy of making the US greater again, he could use days like those". The move, if pursued, could not only further entrench the America First vision for critical mineral supply chains, but the fallout regarding NATO and the transatlantic/ Western relations could rewrite just about every international trade and geopolitical playbook on Earth.
It would be another drastic blow to the prospects of salvaging or rebuilding international rules-based trade, which is already half-sunk and adrift without the support of any of the three greatest powers. Washington, Beijing, and Moscow's critical minerals pursuits do, of course, also risk head-to-head escalation across jurisdictions far and wide, not least in Africa and the Arctic. China already controls about 80% of the DRC's cobalt output through decades of resource-for-infrastructure deals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has said Russia's future lies in securing the Arctic. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();Middle powers: feeling something ain't rightWhile those three dominant poles of the emerging multipolar order continue to move "decisively" towards unilateral, power-driven diplomacy, middle powers are caught in the drift, Yoshihide Soeya, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Law, Keio University, said on May 24. This has been demonstrated through Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China's consolidation of power under President Xi Jinping since 2012 and expansion of its maritime presence from the South and East China Seas into the Western Pacific, along with the Trump administration's American First agenda and focus on predominance in the Western Hemisphere, he said in the East Asia Forum (EAF).
While there's no strict definition of middle powers, in this context, they include Canada, EU member states, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, ASEAN nations, and others. "The aims of middle power cooperation are twofold—to safeguard the sovereignty and interests of middle powers from the overbearing conduct of great powers and to rebuild the liberal international order," Soeya said. To do this, they need to build layered networks of bilateral and multilateral cooperation across issues such as trade, finance, sustainable development, energy, critical minerals, and emerging technologies, he said.
"This process has already begun. From late February to early March 2026, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney toured the Indo-Pacific, concluding a series of bilateral agreements with India, Australia, and Japan," he said. It's been Carney leading the charge on this front—perhaps feeling the heat of sharing a border with the US and Trump's threat of annexing Canada as the 51st state.
The Canadian PM used his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 20 to set the tone for his international campaign in frank terms. A rupture, not a transitionNot only is the international rules-based order crumbling, but it was also something of a lie to begin with, he said. "We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically.
And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim."This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes," he said. "This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct.
We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition."Hegseth hammered this home at the Shangri-La Dialogue, saying, "the old course of a toothless, utopian, and globalist course of foreign policy was headed for a disaster", and that the new approach under Trump is focused on serving US vital interests. The world's critical mineral superpowersBy March 5, the Canadian PM was in Australia's Parliament delivering an address to both Houses. "We are both rich in the foundational metals that power the batteries, electric vehicles, smartphones, and the AI systems of this century.
"Together, we produce one-third of global lithium and uranium, 40% of iron ore, and have a combined war chest of over $25 billion to fast-track projects. Globally, we are number one and number two as the most attractive mining investment jurisdictions in the world. "We are the world's critical mineral superpowers," he said.
"It is my fundamental belief—the result of an optimism I have picked up from this great country—that from this rupture we can build something better, more prosperous, more resilient, and more just," he said. Crucially, Carney argues, unilateral trade with hegemons should be avoided, and a plurilateral trade network and institutions should be transparent and built with consistent standards, whether those standards apply to allies or rivals. He said the "rupture" calls for more than adaptation; it calls for honesty about the world as it is.
"Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is—a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion," he said.(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();Defence and decarbonisationA key pressure that led to the apparent rupture and continues to drive an enormous wedge in Western critical minerals policies is climate change. The Trump administration's November 2025 National Security Strategy states bluntly: "We reject the disastrous ‘climate change' and ‘Net Zero' ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the US, and subsidized our adversaries".
This is despite the widespread international consensus regarding climate change among meteorological and scientific organisations, including the US' own NASA, which states: "There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause". Apart from the US, the only UN member states outside of the Paris Agreement are Iran, Libya, and Yemen.
The lack of decarbonisation concerns leaves the US free to use whatever method it considers best to meet its security-focused critical minerals supply chain needs. This, however, raises complications for the clean energy transition. The case for traceabilityWhy it matters: Concentration in critical mineral supply chains has never been higher.
The top three refining nations control 86% of the market for key energy minerals—up from 82% in 2020. China alone is the leading refiner for 19 of 20 strategic materials tracked by the IEA, with an average market share of 70%. Half of the 20 strategic minerals tracked by the IEA are already subject to some form of export controls.
If the export controls China announced and then suspended in October 2025 were fully enacted, the economic value of downstream production at risk outside China would reach US$6.5 trillion per year—nearly 10% of those countries' combined GDP.What traceability does: It tracks four things: a mineral's origin, its geographical path, its chain of custody, and its physical evolution. When performance data—greenhouse gas emissions, labour standards, tax compliance—are attached, it becomes the foundation for standards-based markets that reward responsible producers and penalise bad actors.New technologies make it possible: For more than a decade, mineral traceability was more aspiration than operational reality. That has changed.
Geochemical fingerprinting can now identify a mineral's origin through its unique molecular signature—a physical passport embedded in the material itself. Blockchain ledgers create tamper-resistant records of every transaction from mine to manufacturer. AI and machine learning detect anomalies and flag fraud risks across complex, multi-jurisdiction supply chains.
No single technology solves the problem alone, but when used in combination, they have made traceable critical mineral supply chains physically possible in ways that were not ten years ago. What governments can do: The IEA recommends five actions: strengthen incentives for data sharing; provide financial support for traceability infrastructure; harmonise standards internationally; enhance cooperation between producing and consuming countries; and adopt a gradual approach starting with less complex supply chains—with lithium identified as the most feasible starting point. And even the EU's push to tilt the scales to balance both defence and decarbonisation requirements into its critical minerals policies, Marina Yue Zhang of the University of Technology in Sydney argues, risks subordinating the minerals crucial to managing climate change to what amounts to a war-oriented logic.
The Associate Professor at the university's Australia-China Relations Institute said on February 22 that the resulting turn towards "state capitalism, with governments acting as direct economic actors, applies the logic of military supply chains to the climate challenge that can only be met by the mobilisation of market forces across the global economy"."Defence-related applications typically account for only a very small fraction of demand for critical minerals—well under 1% of global volume for bulk commodities—while the overwhelming demand is driven by green energy and industrial uses essential to decarbonisation," she said in the EAF. "Treating all minerals equally and adopting security-centred supply chain strategies raises costs—particularly for developing economies—slowing the energy transition," she said. "The solution lies in segmenting supply tracks for security-related and energy transition technologies," she said.
The green track would allow demand to be primarily driven by the energy transition, with policy focusing on liquidity and cost efficiency, with supply chains dependent on standards, scale and affordability. The security track, meanwhile, would focus on ring-fencing smaller supply lines for minerals for strategic technologies like semiconductors and AI, including dual-use applications, through strict chain-of-custody rules, as well as strategic stockpiles and government-backed offtake. Traceability, transparency, and accountability across critical minerals supply chains would enable both the implementation and enforcement of standards for the green track and the monitoring of the chain of custody for the security track.
"The choice is not between security and climate, but whether the West can pursue both without sacrificing one for the other," Yue Zhang said. Where to from here? Despite the challenges ahead, the middle powers seem up for the fight.
And there are signs that rules-based trade and responsible critical mineral supply chains will come to dominate the 21st century. The transactionalism and lack of structured trade in the DRC overseen by both Washington and Beijing may be shortsighted.The DRC and China have had a tense relationship, with accusations that Chinese miners have used their heavy influence in the DRC's cobalt sector to manipulate prices. The DRC has responded with export bans and restrictions.
As for Trump's dealings in the Central African country, the CFR's Gavin says, "As repression ramps up as part of [Tshisekedi's] third term campaign, it is happening against a backdrop of perceived American support. When, eventually, the political tide turns, the US may find itself in an uphill battle for influence and access". The DRC and China will likely remain firmly rooted authoritarian regimes for the foreseeable future, and the US looks set to sink further down in the ‘flawed democracy' category of the EIU's Democracy Index.Global democracy, however, ironically, partly in response to this, stopped a near-decade-long slide in 2025, which "suggests an end to the democracy recession is underway", the EIU said.
Canada and a range of Western European countries saw increases in scores. The group said it's possible that "Trump's caustic approach towards Europe and his aggressive stance towards Canada created a pathway for the body politic to galvanise around unifying issues such as mutual defence and economic progress".Meanwhile, Denmark saw the most significant rise in the global rankings, climbing from seventh to third "partly the consequence of a rally-round-the-flag effect in the wake of the government's successful handling of the stand-off with the US over Greenland in January 2025," the EIU report said. As for the US, the EIU said if the US President's undemocratic tendencies are allowed to proceed unchallenged, there could be a "democratic plunge", but despite "Trump's increasingly authoritarian behaviours in the early months of 2026, it would be surprising if that plunge pushes the US down far enough that it becomes classed as a hybrid regime".
Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, on May 30 at the Shangri-La Dialogue, signalled ‘critical minerals superpower' Australia's support for rebuilding a better international rules-based order. "When rules apply, smaller states have agency. When the rules yield to power, sovereignty becomes—as others have put it—the purview of the powerful.
And no state in this room, whatever its size, is well served by that outcome," he said. There are also signs from participants within the mineral supply chains that traceability and accountability are gaining ground. An International Energy Agency (IEA) survey released in April found that more than two-thirds of surveyed companies had already implemented traceability systems across all or part of their critical minerals supply chains, while only one in five had no plans to do so.
A total of 82 companies participated, including miners, smelters/refiners, manufacturers, and end-users, the IEA said. Almost half of the respondents said they had already observed tangible benefits from traceability initiatives, including improved supply chain visibility, stronger risk management capabilities, better compliance and audit processes, and greater operational efficiencies. Mr Carney goes to New YorkThe latest stop on Carney's international campaign to build a new rules-based order was the very heart of the financial power of the world's largest hegemon, New York City, US.
He bluntly said at the Economic Club of New York that the world is becoming more divided and dangerous amid the US transforming its commercial relationships, drawing attention to both what Canada has done in response and how reliant the US is on its northern neighbour. "In the past year, we have signed 56 critical minerals agreements with more than ten countries—unlocking over 18 billion dollars in capital while reducing dependence on foreign chokeholds in critical supply chains," he said. "We are stepping up to protect Arctic sovereignty through intensified cooperation with the Nordic countries, Germany, and the UK, and by working within NATO to make Arctic security the priority it needs to be," he said.
"Non-US exports are up sharply and are on track to double over the next decade," he said. He noted Canada's rich endowments of potash, nickel, copper, and uranium, saying the country could be "the most reliable supplier that America needs to put affordable food on the table, strengthen its national defence, and meet exploding demand to power AI". He called for a new partnership between Washington and Ottawa while noting the US should call upon its founding values of liberty, democracy, justice, and openness to guide its future, as Canada will aggressively pursue its belief in openness in global partnerships.
Build or burnOn June 2, Yves Tiberghien, Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia, argued that the combination of uncertainty and multipolarity in the world opens an "exceptional" opportunity for "smart" middle powers. "Superpowers need followers as audience and rule-takers. They need to be feared or loved but cannot live with indifference."They also need legitimacy at home, whether elected or not, and that legitimacy often comes from rituals of respect and allegiance by middle powers," he said in the EAF.
"And they need routinised access to resources, critical minerals, finance and trade since they cannot always throw their weight around," Tiberghien, who is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and a Senior Fellow at the University of Alberta's China Institute, said. "This may be a key moment for innovative thinking and institutional entrepreneurialism, as long as middle powers can build cross-cutting coalitions across the North-South divide."The result will be a more decentralised, fluid, multiform and competitive global governance—and one that carries significant promise."The measures implemented at this juncture may determine whether the scramble for critical minerals becomes the foundation of a new order—or the kindling for the next great conflict. This is the first in a four-part series on critical minerals in 2026
