How Africa Can Shift Supply Chains from China

Excerpt

To protect critical American supply chains from China, the United States needs a better deal with African nations. Unfortunately, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expired at the end of September, and there isn’t enough support on Capitol Hill or in the administration to simply extend it. 

While trade preference programs are not popular in Washington, preventing China from controlling the flow of commodities and products to the United States is smart policy and a bipartisan winner. Congress should seize this moment to create a new US-Africa partnership model that relocates specific “buyer-driven” light manufacturing supply chains from China to Africa. 

These are goods—such as critical mineral concentrates, plastics, leather products, and medical disposables—where African partners could hold a cost advantage over China and other emerging economies if not for capital constraints. With the right conditions in place, this partnership model could deliver transformational growth on the continent and protect US supply chains from Chinese coercion.

It is painfully clear that the United States has become overdependent on Chinese exports. China now controls a near-monopoly on many critical minerals and inputs vital to the production of lithium-ion batteries, roughly 95 percent of global battery-grade graphite processing. China’s supply-chain dominance affects everything from electric vehicles to F-35 fighter jets. 

Daniel Swift is a senior research analyst for economics, finance, and trade for the Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). He is a retired US diplomat and was recently the Acting Coordinator for Prosper Africa—A presidential-level national security initiative to increase two-way trade and investment between the United States and Africa. For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe here. Follow FDD on X @FDD.