Competition with China over minerals is meaningless if the prize is a dead planet.
The Critical Missing Piece from the U.S. Energy Transition
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minerals
Afghanistan’s Green Future?
Can Afghanistan’s mineral wealth finance a transition to a carbon-neutral future?
America vs China in Africa
China’s imminent replacement of the West as the dominant international economic and political force in Africa epitomizes the most dramatic shift in geopolitics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet the United States and Europe, Africa’s traditional trading partners, seem incapable of responding to the challenge and retaking the initiative. Instead, their response has been to wring their hands in despair and make ineffectual noises about human rights and democracy.
Controlling Congo’s Minerals
For the past couple of months, the National Association of Manufacturing, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and their public relations hoplites have launched a campaign to invalidate Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The legislation, which was passed July 21, 2010, ostensibly requires public corporations to practice supply-chain due diligence. If a U.S. company gets its minerals from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it must be able to verify that it did not buy them from militias or warlords.
Congo’s Quest for Liberation Continues
Congo has long been the focus of resource exploitation. The first era of colonization in Africa, beginning in the mid-1880s, was most pronounced in this central African country. Belgium’s King Leopold brutalized the population in his quest for rubber and riches, leaving a legacy of natural resource exploitation by white Europeans in the heart of Africa.
Question: Will Lithium Be Good For Afghanistan?
Imagine the Pentagon officials supposedly part of the team that discovered significant mineral wealth in Afghanistan spelunking about in pith helmets with their little rock hammers.
Reader Challenge: Is Afghan Mineral Find a Game-Changer?
Both Afghan elites and the Taliban have be drooling over the $1 trillion in mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
A Bad Week for the Monroe Doctrine
In her address to the delegates, Clinton complained that the OAS “has not always lived up to its founding ideals.” Now it is, and Washington is less than happy.