Geopolitics & Risks
The Sahel is emerging as a strategic node for critical minerals extraction. Mali is projected to become Africa’s second-largest lithium producer in 2026, with reserves estimated at 890,000 tonnes. Niger holds approximately 454,000 tonnes of uranium reserves, representing 5% of global production. These numbers explain the direction of US diplomatic traffic in the region. They do not explain why the approach Washington is building around them is structurally constrained before it has fully launched.
The model is straightforward in its logic. The Trump administration has launched a charm offensive in West Africa, seeking to revive US relations with mineral-rich countries in the Sahel where military juntas have seized power. A senior diplomat visited Mali in early 2026, pledging to respect its sovereignty and to chart a new course after what Washington described as past policy missteps. The State Department said it would pursue similar outreach in Burkina Faso and Niger on shared security and economic interests. In February, Washington hosted its first critical minerals ministerial with 54 countries and signed eleven new bilateral critical minerals frameworks or MOUs, including with Guinea and Morocco on the African continent. The strategic frame is clear: access to minerals, in exchange for security engagement and diplomatic normalisation.
The problem is that this model rests on a delivery capacity that Washington has simultaneously dismantled. Dismantling USAID and rolling back the Millennium Challenge Corporation have deprived the US of the development tools that gave its security partnerships economic depth. Analysis of cancelled USAID awards found roughly $852 million in cuts to West Africa and the Sahel alone, representing nearly 30% of total US aid to the region. Security packages and mineral MOUs are not substitutes for that capacity. Juntas evaluating a US partnership are looking at what Washington can actually deliver on the ground, not only at the diplomatic signal.
The security side of the equation has its own track record to contend with. Washington rolled out multiple initiatives in the region from 2002 onwards, including the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, annual Flintlock exercises, and surveillance drone bases in Niger. Despite $3.3 billion in security assistance over 20 years, US efforts neither contained the jihadist surge in northern Mali nor prevented its spread into Burkina Faso and Niger. Trading security guarantees for critical minerals access risks repeating the Russian error of backing authoritarian leaders without demanding accountability. In a conflict defined by a hybrid insurgency that combines conventional and irregular warfare, local grievances, and fluid adversaries, a transactional approach is inherently insufficient because the problem is not only tactical but structural.
The mineral assets themselves are less straightforward than the reserve figures suggest. Niger’s uranium case illustrates the point. The Nigerien junta nationalized the Somair mine in June 2025, seizing roughly 1,150 metric tons of uranium yellowcake and framing the move as a sovereignty and development imperative. The dispute highlights Niger’s post-coup drive to tighten control over strategic resources and reflects a broader Sahel trend, where military governments have curtailed Western influence while embracing resource nationalism. A government that nationalised French uranium assets is not, by default, a government that will sign a stable long-term minerals agreement with Washington. The leverage flows in both directions.
Mali and Burkina Faso exported only $4.6 million and $3.7 million respectively to the US before the coups, while Niger’s export figures show no consistent commercial dynamic. The existing trade relationship is thin. Building a minerals supply chain from near zero, through politically volatile partners, against Chinese refining dominance that controls roughly 70% of global capacity, is a project measured in decades, not diplomatic cycles. The Sahel juntas understand their leverage, and they are using it: engaging multiple powers simultaneously, hedging between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, and extracting diplomatic recognition without committing to exclusivity.
The question for investors and operators active in the region is what this reconfiguration actually changes. US diplomatic reengagement reduces some of the political risk premium that had accumulated since the coups. It does not resolve the structural security environment, restore the development infrastructure that was dismantled, or guarantee stable contract terms in jurisdictions that have demonstrated willingness to renegotiate or nationalise. The security-for-resources model is not failing because the minerals are not there. It is hitting a wall because the instruments needed to make it credible on both sides of the exchange have been weakened or removed.