China’s Zijin Mining Group is preparing to begin extracting lithium from one of the world’s largest untapped deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo as early as June — a deadline that has sharpened Washington’s increasingly aggressive push to lock down African mineral resources before Beijing can consolidate its lead.
Zijin controls the northern half of the contested Manono lithium deposit in southeastern Congo, and its looming production start has added urgency to a separate diplomatic effort unfolding on the southern half of the same site — one that has drawn in the White House, the State Department, and a Silicon Valley-backed startup with billionaire investors.
Trump administration officials met with Nigel Ferguson, managing director of Perth-based AVZ Minerals Ltd., at the White House on January 21 and urged him to transfer the company’s contested interest in the Manono deposit to an American buyer. Ferguson confirmed the meeting. “The White House encouraged AVZ to do a commercially responsible deal with an American company — but did not nominate a specific company,” he said.
The only known US suitor is KoBold Metals, a Berkeley, California-based AI-driven exploration startup backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Marc Andreessen. KoBold has Congolese government support and has signed framework agreements with both AVZ and Kinshasa, pledging more than $1 billion to develop the site and compensate AVZ for relinquishing its claims. KoBold declined to comment on the White House discussions.
Peter Harrell, a former Biden administration economic adviser now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the approach marks new terrain for US policy. While officials have long pushed foreign companies to keep strategic assets out of Chinese hands, he said, explicitly directing a sale to Americans represents something different. “It sounds to me like a material shift in tone to say, ‘sell it to the Americans,'” Harrell said.
Congo revoked AVZ’s mining permit in 2023 and reassigned it, prompting the Australian company to file international arbitration cases that remain unresolved. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes issued interim orders in January 2024 directing Congo to recognize AVZ’s joint venture as the rightful license holder — orders AVZ says subsequent KoBold-DRC agreements violate. Congo has not responded publicly to those claims.
KoBold, for its part, has said it will not begin construction until ownership issues are resolved. Cominiere, the Congolese state miner that now officially holds the southern concession, drew a pointed contrast with its Chinese partner’s approach. “The Chinese are more pragmatic,” Cominiere’s managing director told Reuters.
Complicating matters further, CATL — the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer and a major AVZ shareholder — had a prior agreement to purchase Manono’s lithium output and has been funding AVZ’s arbitration campaign. The arrangement gives China a financial stake in the company Washington is now pressuring to align with American interests.
The Manono dispute sits within a broader minerals-for-security framework that the Trump administration is assembling with Congo. On February 4, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial at the State Department, drawing delegations from 54 countries. Vice President JD Vance announced coordinated reference prices and price floors for critical minerals, aimed at shielding Western producers from Chinese market pressure.
American officials have identified Manono as a priority target within the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity — a minerals-for-security deal Trump brokered between Congo and Rwanda in December 2025 that grants US companies preferential access to Congolese mineral reserves.
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