US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement on Trade and Investment

Mechanism

The Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) is a bilateral framework treaty signed in Washington on 4 December 2025 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DRC Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, in a trilateral White House ceremony alongside the parallel U.S.-Rwanda SPA and witnessed by President Trump, President Tshisekedi, and President Kagame. The Agreement is the first US bilateral critical-minerals instrument with the world's largest cobalt producer (~70% of global mined cobalt) and the second-largest copper producer (after Chile). It comprises four operative mechanisms:

1. Strategic Minerals Reserve (SMR). A DRC-controlled reserve of strategic mineral assets. The Agreement preserves DRC sovereignty over the SMR but creates a US-aligned channel for monetisation and offtake.

2. Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR). A DRC-designated portfolio of mining assets, infrastructure, and equity stakes for which U.S. persons receive preferential access, including investment, equity participation, and offtake rights. The DRC government formally designated the initial SAR asset list at the JSC inaugural meeting on 4-5 February 2026.

3. Sakania-Lobito Corridor mandate. DRC and its state-owned enterprises (Gécamines, EGC, MIBA, etc.) commit that within five years, at least 30% of the cobalt volumes they elect to commercialise from their equity and contractual marketing rights are exported via the Sakania-Lobito Corridor. The corridor is the US-aligned westbound rail/road route through Angola to the Atlantic, displacing the Tanzania-Dar es Salaam route used to ship cobalt to Chinese refiners. The JSC may modify the percentage based on commercial and logistical developments.

4. Joint Steering Committee (JSC). A bilateral body co-chaired by the U.S. State Department and the DRC Ministry of Economy, responsible for SAR designation, dispute resolution, and investment-pipeline reporting. Inaugural meeting held in Washington 4-5 February 2026 on the sidelines of the FORGE Critical Minerals Ministerial. The JSC produces a joint report for the U.S. private sector outlining identified investment opportunities.

First commercial deliverable: DFC-Gécamines-Mercuria JV

In parallel with the Agreement signing, DFC announced a proposed equity investment in a joint venture between Gécamines SA (DRC state-owned mining enterprise) and Mercuria Energy Trading. The JV covers the commercialisation of copper, cobalt, and other critical minerals from Gécamines partnership assets and is the first concrete commercial vehicle under the SPA framework. The DFC equity-vehicle template echoes the Joint Investment Holding Company structure deployed in the parallel U.S.-Uzbekistan framework signed two months later.

Why severity 4

• Geographic concentration of supply. DRC produces ~70% of global

mined cobalt and ~10% of global copper. No bilateral US instrument before this had structurally targeted that supply concentration.

• Westward routing of cobalt flow. The Sakania-Lobito 30%

commitment is the first treaty-level mandate to redirect a meaningful share of African cobalt away from Chinese refiners and toward Atlantic-facing logistics. Combined with the Lobito Corridor TransAfrica rail investment, it operationalises a structural alternative to the Chinese-dominated DRC-Tanzania-China route.

• Equity-vehicle precedent in Africa. The DFC-Gécamines-Mercuria

JV is the first US equity investment in a DRC SOE-backed mining vehicle and a template for further sub-Saharan engagements.

• Tied to a peace framework. The SPA was signed alongside the

Washington Agreements covering the eastern DRC conflict, linking US security guarantees to DRC mineral access.

Downstream implications

• Glencore, CMOC exposure. The two largest non-Chinese (Glencore)

and Chinese (CMOC, ~52% of DRC cobalt mined) cobalt producers in the DRC are now operating under a SAR-designation regime that may preferentially channel future tenders toward US-aligned counterparts.

• Cobalt price floor. The DRC's parallel cobalt export quota

system (filed: 2025-02-22-drc-arecoms-cobalt-export-ban-quota-system) combined with the SPA-enabled SAR offtake mechanism creates a structural price floor for DRC cobalt and tightens the spread vs Indonesian intermediate cobalt.

• Lobito Corridor demand. The 30% cobalt routing commitment is a

binding load-factor anchor for the rebuilt Lobito rail line, which was previously a stranded-asset risk.

• China rare-earths counter-context. The SPA is part of the US

response to China's April + October 2025 rare-earths export-control regime, which signalled the West needed dedicated supply pacts with African producers.

Open questions

• Will the SAR list be published in full, or kept confidential to

preserve commercial leverage?

• Constitutional challenge: a DRC civil-society coalition (Oakland

Institute reporting) filed a constitutional challenge to the SPA in early 2026 alleging that the SAR mechanism violates Article 9 of the DRC constitution (state ownership of mineral subsoil). Watch the DRC Constitutional Court ruling.

• Enforcement of the 30% Sakania-Lobito mandate — corridor capacity

remains constrained until the Lobito Atlantic Railway upgrade completes (2026-2028 schedule).

• Will Glencore and CMOC accept SAR-designation of their existing

Gécamines partnership assets, or will they re-negotiate offtake contracts to avoid US-preferential allocation?

• Treatment under the FORGE framework — is the SPA structurally

different from the eleven FORGE-signing bilateral MoUs, or does it serve as the legal-form precedent FORGE was modelled on?