The United States is shifting strategy to fund local African processing and mining infrastructure, after recognising it cannot yet process the critical minerals it is racing to secure from the continent to counter China.Tom Haslett, managing director of policy for critical minerals at the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), said that unlike China, which had “significant industry backing for both processing and downstream manufacturing”, the US and Europe did not yet have that capacity.Speaking in Nairobi last month, he argued that this deficit created “real opportunities for Africa” to develop local beneficiation. “We are not at the point where...