Reclaiming the Edge: Why the UK Must Re-Forge Its Mineral Ties by building stronger UK-Africa Mineral Partnerships

For much of the twentieth century, Britain sat at the centre of global mineral and commodity flows. Through its colonies and later the Commonwealth, London was a hub for copper, cobalt, gold and agricultural products. In return came capital, institutions and industrial output. Yet over time, those pipelines frayed. Britain’s focus shifted inward to Europe, its trade policies aligned with Brussels, and the once-vibrant trade with Africa thinned. What looked like economic pragmatism at the time has become strategic vulnerability today.

The numbers underline how far things have shifted. Between 2015 and 2018, more than half of UK investment in Africa was in mining and quarrying, averaging nearly 26 billion dollars. Most of that capital was concentrated in extraction alone. Very little was directed to downstream processing, such as smelting, refining and separation, the steps where real value and leverage are created. This neglect of deeper UK-Africa mineral partnerships left space for others to step in. China, by contrast, poured resources into those very bottlenecks. Today, it produces about 69 per cent of the world’s rare earth elements and controls 99 per cent of the processing capacity for heavy rare earths. Europe and the UK remain exposed. A bar chart of global shares would show just how stark the imbalance has become. While China mines plenty, it dominates processing to an almost monopolistic degree.

China's share of rare earths mining www.bbabsalmines.com

This is not an abstract concern. In April 2025, Chinese authorities tightened export licensing for key medium and heavy rare earths. Within weeks, European manufacturers reported delays in supply. These minerals are indispensable for fighter jets, wind turbines, electric vehicles and data centres, the entire architecture of the green and digital economy. Britain is particularly exposed. It no longer sets the rules of the EU’s trade policy, but it also lacks deep independent mineral alliances of its own. It sits in between, vulnerable to decisions made elsewhere. The Foreign Affairs Committee in Westminster warned in a report titled A Rock and a Hard Place that successive governments have been slow to act, leaving the UK vulnerable to supply chain shocks. A Labour-aligned think tank went further, noting that China extracts about 70 per cent of the world’s rare earth metals and controls 90 per cent of neodymium magnet production, while the UK has yet to build sufficient resilience. Even the government’s own Critical Minerals Strategy acknowledges the risk, promising to “boost domestic capability” and “collaborate with partners,” but critics question whether urgency matches rhetoric.

African leaders are not blind to the risks of over-reliance on a single partner. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Deputy Mines Director Marcellin Paluku was blunt earlier this year: “Today, 80 per cent of our mines it is with one partner (China). So it is a risk… We are now trying to diversify our partnerships so we do not rely on only one partner.” Zambia’s Mines Minister Paul Kabuswe struck a similar note, telling reporters in January, “We no longer want those agreements where we have 10 per cent or 15 per cent,” signalling that his government is seeking more meaningful stakes in new ventures and broader partnerships, including with Middle Eastern and Western investors. Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane added that if all goes to plan, 2025 should mark the start of a copper production revival that will get stronger each year. Zambia’s output is already up 30 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2025 to 224,000 metric tons, and the government is looking for partners who can sustain that growth.

Yet China continues to demonstrate its staying power through infrastructure. In March, Chinese state-linked builders committed $ 1.4 billion to upgrade the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, the line that carries copper to port. Kenyan leaders, too, have signed new agreements with Beijing on railways, highways and agro-processing, underscoring how visible Chinese investment has become. As Zambia’s Minister of Transport and Logistics, Frank Tayali, put it: “The results of Chinese investment are visible, from job creation, technology transfer, and skills development to the growth of local industries.” That visibility matters. It anchors Chinese influence in ways that the UK and Europe have not matched in recent decades.

Still, there are signs of movement from Britain. Through British International Investment, UK capital into African companies surged by 40 per cent in 2024, from 725 million pounds to 1.09 billion pounds, with mining listed among the priority sectors. London remains the world’s leading centre for mining finance, home to giants such as Glencore and Anglo American. Domestically, there are promising ventures like the Saltend facility in Yorkshire, which plans to process neodymium and praseodymium from Angola and could one day supply 5 per cent of global demand for those metals. These are meaningful developments, but they remain the exception rather than the rule.

Cape Town, South Africa www.bbabsalmines.com

The opportunity for Britain is clear. By aligning its financial muscle with African ambition, it can offer something different from both aid dependency and pure resource extraction. That means funding processing plants on the continent, not just mines. It means trade agreements that make African goods more competitive in UK markets, while transferring technology and training local workforces. It means supporting infrastructure, roads, ports, and power grids that make mining viable and communities prosperous. Most of all, it means showing respect. Africa wants partners, not patrons. As one Kenyan official put it, “We are rich in minerals, but we are richer still in people. If Britain comes with respect, there is room for everyone.”

The stakes could not be higher. As the green transition accelerates and the appetite for copper, cobalt and rare earths grows, whoever controls processing and supply chains will set the pace of global growth. Britain can either accept dependence on China or re-establish itself as a trusted partner with Africa. It will require risk, capital and political will. But if Britain chooses wisely, it can once again reclaim its edge in the mineral world, this time not by dominion but by cooperation.

Britain’s future edge will depend on forging strong and equal UK-Africa mineral partnerships that secure both prosperity and resilience.

This analysis is published by Bbabsal Mines.

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