In eastern Congo, armed groups reap benefits from illegal mining and mineral smuggling of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths. Civilians pay the price of ongoing conflict. This brutal extraction of resources, essential for global technology from smartphones to fighter jets, fuels violence and displaces millions across resource-rich nations.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reported that competition for these critical minerals directly benefits armed groups in Congo. The ongoing conflict there exacts a heavy toll on the population. In Sudan, the bitter fight between government and paramilitary forces for political and territorial dominance is fueled by the exploitation of natural resources, particularly gold and gum arabic. This struggle has led to atrocities and the displacement of millions.
Capital's War for Resources
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned the U.N. Security Council that critical minerals are now seen as strategic assets, not merely commodities. They're a major source of interstate competition. Major economies are racing to secure these supplies, using them as leverage. This global scramble creates a real risk of rising conflicts.
Okonjo-Iweala stated that developing economies often find themselves locked into the lowest level of production. The highest value jobs, technologies, and profits consistently go elsewhere. She emphasized that the minerals beneath Africa or any developing region’s soil shouldn't finance the conflicts above it.
Africa alone holds roughly 30% of the world’s critical minerals. Less than half of its mineral reserves have been explored. Congo accounts for over 70% of global cobalt production. South Africa possesses the world’s largest reserves of platinum and manganese. Zambia and Congo are major copper producers. Between 10 and 12 African countries have commercially exploitable reserves of lithium. An additional 15 to 20 countries hold commercially exploitable deposits of rare earths.
Profits Flow Out, Conflict Stays
The world can't achieve energy security, the green transition, or digital transformation without these resources. Yet, the current system ensures that the wealth generated from their extraction rarely benefits the populations whose lands are plundered. Instead, it concentrates wealth in the hands of global capital and those who control local extraction. This systematic underpayment of labor and privatization of collective resources is a defining feature of the global economic order.
The WTO Director-General proposed a “once-in-a-lifetime chance” for resource-rich countries to harness wealth and improve life for millions. However, this opportunity has too easily triggered violence and poverty. The structural contradictions of capital accumulation drive this outcome.
False Promises of Reform
Okonjo-Iweala suggested three priorities to create “a more diversified, inclusive, and win-win global economy.” She called for resource-rich developing countries to demand more local processing, refining, and “value addition.” She also advocated for strengthening the international rule of law. Finally, she urged resource-rich countries to work together, using their leverage to reverse the export of raw materials and import of finished goods, and to promote investment.
These proposals, while seemingly aimed at equity, operate within a system designed to concentrate wealth upward. They don't challenge the fundamental power dynamics that allow major economies to treat minerals as strategic assets for leverage and military application. Such reforms extend the life of the existing order without addressing its foundations. Every gain made within these structures remains temporary and reversible, as the ongoing conflicts in Congo and Sudan starkly demonstrate. The state, through its laws and military power, primarily functions to protect accumulated wealth and suppress organized challenges to this distribution.