The ascent of China’s economic influence in Africa is undeniable, with China surpassing the United States as the continent’s largest trade partner in 2009 and more recently quadrupling the US-Africa trade volume. The trade gap has US policymakers concerned over eroding US influence on the continent, increasing the appetite for developmental and infrastructure investment to facilitate US-Africa economic ties. It is in this context that the Lobito Corridor – a 1,300 km railway traversing Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Zambia – first came to light in 2023.

Any US initiative in Africa is destined to play catch-up against China’s longer running and more comprehensive engagement strategy. Over the past decade, such efforts have run through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a colossal infrastructure and economic development project spanning across Asia, Europe, and Africa. To date, 52 African governments have signed BRI-related Memorandums of Understanding (MoU), and the initiative has translated into billions of dollars invested in the construction of roads, ports, railways, and other critical infrastructure. In 2023 alone, some $21.7 billion in loans flowed from BRI to Africa.

Finance flows of this caliber are never geopolitically neutral, and in this case, they have provided China with unprecedented access to Africa’s vast mineral wealth, with just two examples being the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Chinese companies own 72% of all cobalt and copper mines, and Guinea, where Chinese companies dominate the bauxite industry and are major stakeholders in the sprawling Simandou iron mine.

 

Lobito Corridor: Beating BRI at Its own Game

Enter the Lobito Corridor, a US-championed effort to engage with Africa in a manner similar to BRI. Announced in October of 2023 at the EU Global Gateway Forum, the project brings together the African Development Bank (AfDB), Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), United States, and European Commission, who together will realize the construction of a railway linking northwest Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean.

The funding structure of the Lobito Corridor mirrors that of Belt and Road, with the United States playing the part of primary facilitator, albeit in a way that allows private finance to play a role. From the project’s inception through September 2024, the United States has dedicated over $3 billion in funding across multiple sectors, including transportation and logistics, agriculture, clean energy, health, and digital access. Much of the funding comes via the Partnership for Global Infrastructure (PGI), a joint effort from G7 countries seeking a larger role in the global infrastructure space, first established in 2022.

The objective of the Lobito Corridor is also familiar in that it seeks to build new infrastructure in capital-deficient developing countries, infrastructure that may not be profitable in and of itself though it enables other profitable (and pro-growth) economic activity. The project envisions the construction of approximately 550 km of new rail track in Zambia, from Jimbe on the border to Chingola in the Zambian copper belt. This new line will connect to newly-built track on the Angolan side of the border, which will link into the pre-existing Benguela railway at Luacano. The end result will be a new maritime export corridor granting Zambia access to the Atlantic Ocean. The project also involves the construction of some 260 km of feeder roads along the corridor and renovations of the 120-year-old Benguela railway.

Finally, the Lobito Corridor mirrors Belt and Road in that it advances US and Western economic interests in a more holistic sense, one that looks beyond expected losses incurred on the infrastructure itself. First and foremost, the project envisions westward trade flows via the Atlantic, which will help source critical minerals and commodities needed for the energy transition, particularly from the DRC. Copper is a key consideration here as the Lobito Corridor has the potential of securing supply lines from both the DRC and Zambia, as the new railway links the Zambian copper belt to an Atlantic port for the first time. Previously, Zambian metal exports have tended to flow eastward for export out of Tanzania’s Dar El Salaam port.

 

A Trans-Africa Corridor? Lobito Corridor Looks to Expand into Tanzania

The United States showed its hand on future plans for the Lobito Corridor in August of 2024 when Helaina Matza, a special coordinator for PGI at the US State Department, revealed that discussions have been held on expanding the corridor into Tanzania. During a press conference, Matza stated that US policy had always been regional in its outlook and sought to realize a wider ranging Trans-Africa Corridor, bridging the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, rather than a set of ad hoc infrastructure projects. Incidentally, Matza also noted that the initial phase of the Lobito Corridor – the renovation of the Benguela railway – was progressing smoothly, with copper shipments already flowing from DRC to the United States for the first time. The second and more ambitious phase of the construction of a new railway in Zambia was pending the completion of feasibility studies.

The decision to open up the corridor – and all the critical minerals along it – to eastward trade via Dar El Salaam may at first seem counterintuitive from the perspective of zero sum geopolitics. But this is likely a matter of longer-term thinking. For one, the infrastructure is largely already present in the form of the Tazara line linking Dar Es Salaam on the Indian Ocean and Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. Linking up with the Lobito Corridor at Chingola would require around 200 km of greenfield construction. Two, realizing the Trans-Africa Corridor would bolster the soft power credentials of PGI, which claims to be motivated by advancing good governance and regional economic growth above all. According to Matza, the United States’ primary interest here is supply chain resilience and ensuring the critical minerals make it to regional and global markets (rather than getting absorbed into competing mercantile systems like Belt and Road).

 

Too Little Too Late for US Engagement in Africa?

The significance of the Lobito Corridor cannot be overstated, nor can its timeliness. Chinese FDI in Africa remains higher than Western states, averaging approximately $4 billion from 2019-2021 while US FDI turned negative some years. Yet that competitive edge has shrunk more recently. An economic slowdown post-pandemic and weakening lending capabilities have caused BRI-related investment to plummet in Africa, from $16.5 billion in 2021 to $7.5 billion in 2023 – a decline of 55%. Moreover, as per findings from Bruegel, a sense of fatigue has set in where perceptions of Belt and Road have deteriorated across numerous geographies from 2017-2022 owing in part to mounting debt concerns in BRI states.

Herein lies the real opportunity for the Lobito Corridor and its Western backers. It’s not the trade-related economic interests at play, which typically resemble those of China, nor the FDI levels that have yet to fully catch up. Rather, a window of opportunity has opened up on the soft power front, where a combination of popular fatigue over debt repayments and the opaque nature of some BRI deals is generating calls for an alternative way for Africa to lessen its infrastructure deficit.

The Lobito Corridor is attempting to present itself as just such an alternative. For one, it adopts a much more multilateral perspective than a typical Belt and Road project and has made efforts to partner with regional players, namely the AfDB, which has been an active backer of the corridor from the beginning. AfDB involvement serves two critical purposes. On the financial level, it helps spread the financial burden of raising money for infrastructure projects that tend to have an extended horizon for profitability, if ever – evident in the $1.6 billion that AfDB helped raise in 2023. And on the political level, the AfDB helps alleviate concerns of neocolonial exploitation by major powers like the United States or China. The multilateral approach has pulled in external players as well. For example, the World Bank provided $300 million to a complementary local initiative, representing the first infrastructure the Bank contributed to in Africa since 2002. And the European Commission has pledged to conduct environmental and social feasibility studies in order to limit the impact on vulnerable populations and habitats along the Lobito Corridor route.

But is this a case of too little, too late for Washington’s re-engagement with Africa? Not at all. It’s true that the Lobito Corridor and similar projects face real challenges, namely China’s head start in terms of infrastructure development and the resulting economic and diplomatic relationships, as reflected in the continent’s warming perceptions of Beijing. Yet Africa is far vaster and more diverse than one simple label can convey. The continent is home to 54 recognized states, each with their own developmental needs and experience engaging with China, positive and negative. And if there’s one thing that can unite Africans across this diversity, it’s a shared need for capital and infrastructure investment. This creates an opportunity for Washington to build new economic and diplomatic bridges, and an opportunity for Africans to get a better developmental deal from Beijing and Washington competing for favor – a true win-win for all involved.

 

*Note: Copper belt mining locations on map not exhaustive and based on this dataset from the US Department of Interior.