Africa: US and China go head-to-head in battle for continent’s railways

The US and China are going head-to-head in Africa with rival projects in the rail infrastructure sector, which focus on the re-development of European ‘colonial era’ freight routes.

The aim is strikingly clear: to secure supply chains for critical metals and minerals such as copper, cobalt, chromium, graphite, lithium, manganese, nickel, and rare earths, essential to the new tech and defense industries, as well as electric vehicle production, solar and wind buildouts, 5G networks, and advanced computing.

It is a prime illustration of the 21st century geopolitical landscape, often framed as a nascent cold war between the world’s two leading economies.

China has a decades-long presence across the continent, accelerated by President Xi's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched in 2013, and today stands as the premier infrastructure investor in several African states.

In contrast, the US and the European Union are in a catch-up mode as they seek to counter China’s economic power in Africa.

‘Scramble’ For Vital Natural Resources

One of the key projects in what has been termed as a ‘scramble’ for Africa’s vital natural resources is the $1.4 billion revamp of the Tazara rail line between Zambia and Tanzania.

The state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has won a 30-year concession to manage the line, originally built with Chinese investment in the 1970s.

It runs from the copper mines in Kapiri Mposhi, in landlocked Zambia to Tanzania’s major Indian Ocean port city of Dar-Es-Salaam and is projected to increase freight volumes to 2.4 million tonnes a year, from about 100,000 tonnes currently.

US$1 billion will be spent on renovation work on the 1,860-kilometre-long [1155.75 miles] railway, with the remaining US$400 million earmarked for the acquisition of 32 locomotives and 762 new rail wagons.

Lobito Corridor

In a bid to curb China’s already dominant position in African mining, Western capital focuses on the ‘Lobito Corridor’ rail project, linking Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Angola’s port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast.

Driven by the US-led G7 coalition's Partnership for Global Investments and Infrastructures (PGII), it could potentially become one of Africa’s most strategic transport and trade routes.

The line demonstrated its strategic worth crucially during the Second World War when it served to transport several thousand tonnes of uranium ore from the Shinkolobwe mine in the Katanga region of the DRC to the US - some of it via the port of Lobito – where it was used in the Manhattan Project, headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, to make the atomic bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The DRC is also rich in strategic natural resources such as cobalt and lithium, for which demand is expected to soar by 2040, as well as boasting significant deposits of zinc, copper, and manganese.

Over the past 20 years, China has gained a strong foothold in the Congolese mining industry, mirroring the investments and infrastructure financing it has undertaken, and the partnerships forged with resource-rich governments in Africa.

However, the DRC is also one of the most politically-volatile nations in the world, where government forces routinely clash with rebel groups, as well as being among the poorest, aggravated by frequent humanitarian crises.

So, the challenge to rehabilitate and operate a long-distance rail freight corridor across its territory for bulk freight is all too apparent, given that the reliability of high-frequency trains will be paramount.

‘Game Changer’

In December 2024, in the final months of his term of office, Joe Biden visited Angola - his only visit to Africa as U.S. President - to announce a $250 million feasibility study stage of the Lobito Corridor railway project.

He hailed the project as a “game changer”, which would “close the infrastructure gap for the benefit of Angolans and Africans across the continent, Americans and the world.”

Biden added: “A shipment that used to take over 45 days will now take 45 hours,” a reference to the rapidity of rail freight compared to road and the current situation of trucks facing lengthy queues at border crossings.

President Trump has since lent his support to the project, which will see the upgrading and extending of the 1,300km colonial railway - similar to the Tazara line but running in the opposite direction, west from Zambia to Angola via the DRC.

Last month (December 2025), at a ceremony in Washington, its financing took a major step forward with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) closing a $553 million loan deal with the Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) - a private sector consortium. The Development Bank of Southern Africa is contributing $200 million to the project, too.

‘Prevent Monopolization’

LAR, whose members include Portuguese civil engineering group Mota-Engil, commodities trader Trafigura, and rail operator Vecturis SA, has been granted a 30-year concession by the Angolan government.

In a statement, DFC said its investment in the railway would support the securing of reliable supply chains and “prevent monopolization by China and other strategic competitors” - a very clear message that its involvement was geopolitical in nature.

The financing package is expected to increase Lobito’s transportation capacity tenfold to approximately 4.6 million metric tonnes per annum and to reduce the cost of transporting critical minerals by an estimated 30%.

The supporters of the project highlight the transformative impact it would have on trade not only in Angola and the DRC but in Zambia and Zimbabwe and across the entire southern African region. Trains will carry not only vital metals and minerals but also farm produce from regions for which international markets have been out of reach

EU Support

The European Union has also pledged its support for the project through a €200 million investment program in Zambia.

€50 million is earmarked for the rehabilitation and modernization of Zambia Railways’ infrastructure, to improve efficiency and prepare the system for integration into the Lobito Corridor and other regional routes.

One important decision facing the project’s managers is whether to follow the railway’s original path, which crosses Angola before entering the DRC and sweeping down into Zambia.

The section in the DRC is basically out of service and would require a complete and doubtless costly makeover. One option would be to follow an itinerary that bypasses the DRC after crossing Angola and heads into Zambia.

Commodities would then be trucked to the railway from the DRC to be loaded on to rail wagons.

Financing Model

The DFC described the financial close for the Lobito Atlantic Railway as an “important milestone” and one which "underscores the United States’ commitment to advance strategic infrastructure that promotes regional trade, mutual economic growth, and long-term US-Africa cooperation.”

However, several questions remain, not least provision for additional funding and also a start-to-completion time frame – an indication that the project is still in its very early stages.

To end on a positive note, the project’s implementation could be facilitated by its financing model, which centers on limiting the risk to the participating African states. Contrast this with some of China’s BRI projects across the continent that have become ‘debt-heavy’.