US President Donald Trump isn’t letting his diplomatic tiff with South Africa get in the way of business.
Fresh off last week’s inaugural critical minerals ministerial in Washington, US energy officials and private-sector executives are headed straight to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba.
Today through Thursday, Africa’s largest mining conference will host more than 10,000 attendees from across the world, including almost 3,000 government officials and mining executives.
Expected attendees include US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) Acting Director Thomas Hardy; US International Development Corporation (DFC) Acting Vice President for Infrastructure and Critical Minerals Danielle Montgomery and Acting VP for Foreign Policy Bethany Aquilina Brez; US ambassadors to Namibia John Giordano and Zimbabwe Pamela Tremont, and Zambia Deputy Chief of Mission Mich Coker; State Department Bureau of African Affairs Office of Economic and Regional Affairs Director Daniel Travis; Acting US Trade Representative for Africa Osvaldo Gomez-Martinez; International Trade Administration (ITA) Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa Rachel Billingslea; Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Acting Deputy VP of Infrastructure, Environment and Private Sector Amanda Jennings; and Department of Energy Special Envoy for Global Energy Integration Joshua Volz.
“This is the largest USG delegation ever to attend the mining indaba,” executive advisory board member Tony Carroll tells The Africa Report.
Montgomery is expected to speak on the panel ‘How can African countries leverage the rise of new investors in critical minerals?’
Congo deal questions
Over on Capitol Hill, the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa on Tuesday holds the second of two hearings on the Washington Peace Accords for the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, to ‘examine the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in helping to facilitate the implementation of the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity’.
Witnesses include former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall, now the US chair of the Blood Battery Campaign to halt child labour in the extraction of cobalt; Ethan Tan, a policy analyst at the America First Policy Institute; and Christian-Géraud Neema, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The hearing comes after Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi met with subcommittee chairman Chris Smith and top Democrat Sara Jacobs during an express visit to Washington for the minerals meet, during which he earned plaudits from President Trump at the national prayer breakfast and mining executives at the US Chamber of Commerce.
In other congressional news, the full House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on Wednesday on ‘Restoring Mission Focus at the State Department: Authority, Accountability, and the Role of the Foreign Service’.
Under Secretary of State for Management Jason Evans is slated to testify.
Somalia in the hot seat
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans continue to try to link allegations of welfare fraud in Minnesota’s Somali-American community to Somalia.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, has said the “Minnesota taxpayer is the largest source of funds for the Somali terror group Al-Shabaab”.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky, holds a hearing Tuesday on ‘Examining Fraud and Foreign Influence in State and Federal Programmes’.
Republican State Senator Mark Koran, who has argued that false accusations of racism have emboldened Somali fraudsters and impeded investigators, will be testifying.
At the same time, the Senate Judiciary panel on border security and immigration, chaired by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, holds a hearing on ‘Somali Fraud in Minnesota – The Tip of the Iceberg’.
Finally, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday will hold a hearing on ‘Haiti 2026: Security and Foreign Assistance Priorities’.
Kenya has earned US plaudits for leading the multinational mission aimed at supporting the Haitian national police in their struggle against drug gangs.
Over at the UN, the Security Council holds closed consultations today on Sudan and a briefing on Tuesday on the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
On the think tank side, the Centre for Global Development on Wednesday holds a virtual hearing on how major donor countries should prioritise aid in an era of massive cuts.
Witnesses include Zainab Usman, the former head of Carnegie’s Africa programme, who is now a senior research scholar with the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
By – https://www.theafricareport.com/408096/us-africa-week-ahead-trump-team-heads-to-south-africa-for-mining-indaba/