Congo's Uranium Is Flowing to China. America Should Take It Back

 Eighty years ago, the uranium that powered America's victory in the Second World War did not come from Nevada or New Mexico. It came from Congo, specifically the Shinkolobwe mine in Katanga, in the country I hope to lead. American and Congolese effort, joined together, helped end the War. That partnership is one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century. This week, it became a warning for the twenty-first.

A new investigation by Lighthouse Reports, covered by Semafor, alleges that between 2,000 and 5,000 tonnes of uranium were exported from the Democratic Republic of Congo to China between 2000 and 2024. This happened despite a formal prohibition on commercial uranium exports from our country. According to the reporting, the uranium moved alongside cobalt shipments as a by-product, through mining operations that were once American-owned and now belong to a Chinese firm. Shinkolobwe was formally closed in 2004, but the investigation makes clear that mining activity in the region never fully stopped.

Read that again. American-owned operations, sold to China, that allegedly became a channel for the most sensitive mineral on earth to leave Congo unmonitored, year after year, while Beijing tightened its grip. This is exactly the strategic drift that President Trump set out to reverse, and exactly why his approach to Congo matters.

Uranium is the raw material of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. When it moves in the shadows, outside of law and oversight, and when it moves toward a strategic competitor of the United States, it is not a trade issue, it is a national security threat. Every American should care where Congo's uranium ends up, because the answer shapes the balance of power for decades to come.

Here is the good news. The United States is no longer standing on the sidelines. Over the past two years, Washington has built the most serious American strategy in Congo in a generation. It includes the United States and DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, support for the Lobito Corridor, and major financing commitments through the Development Finance Corporation. President Trump recognized what too many leaders before him ignored: that peace in Congo, secure access to critical minerals, and breaking China's chokehold on strategic supply chains are matters of United States national security. As Africa President of the Africa USA Business Council, I worked alongside partners to help advance the minerals and security logic that shaped that engagement, and I believe in it deeply. It is the right strategy, and it deserves to succeed.

But this investigation exposes the gap between agreements on paper and reality on the ground. Roughly 95 percent of Congo's cobalt ore already goes to China. The majority of our copper exports flow east as well. If uranium has been slipping out of Congo unmonitored while these agreements were being signed, then the supply chains America is working to secure are leaking at their most dangerous point. Beijing understands this. Washington must as well.

Why does this happen? The answer is governance. Smuggling on this scale does not persist for two decades by accident. It persists because institutions are weak, because oversight is compromised, and because a state consumed by political crisis cannot police its own most strategic assets. A country where leaders are focused on rewriting the constitution to remain in power is a country where uranium can disappear into a cargo manifest. China does not need to win Congo by force. It only needs Congo to stay divided and distracted.

That is the outcome America must not allow, and Congo must not accept. This is why I have said, and will keep saying, that strategic credibility begins with constitutional credibility. Congo cannot ask the United States to trust our mineral agreements while our own rules are treated as negotiable and our own export prohibitions are ignored. A reliable partner for America is a partner that respects the rule of law at home.

So here is what should be done, and quickly.

First, transparency. Congo should invite a full, independent audit of uranium-bearing mineral flows out of Katanga and publish the results. If the allegations are wrong, an audit will prove it. If they are right, America and its allies deserve to know how deep the problem runs and how to close it.

Second, partnership that benefits both nations. The United States and Congo should expand the Strategic Partnership Agreement to explicitly cover uranium and other sensitive, dual-use minerals, with joint monitoring, secure chain-of-custody standards, and American investment in the tracking and enforcement capacity Congo currently lacks. America helped build the nuclear age with Congolese uranium. It should now make certain that Congolese uranium strengthens the free world, not its adversaries.

Third, leadership. None of this works without a Congolese government that treats its own laws as binding, its constitution as permanent, and its partnership with the United States as a lasting strategic commitment. The 2028 election is the moment for Congo to choose that path, and to choose America as its most favored partner.

The Semafor report tells a story about uranium. But it is really a story about trust, and trust is the true critical mineral of the U.S. and Congo relationship. It cannot be mined. It can only be earned. Congo has the resources America needs. America has the investment, the technology, and the security partnership Congo needs. What stands between us and that future is not geology. It is leadership. America has out themselves back in the game. It is time for Congo to so as well.

Patrice Majondo Mwamba is a former NFL player, Africa President of the Africa USA Business Council, founder of Our Congo Our Pride, and a candidate for President of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 2028 election.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2026/08/18/congos_uranium_is_flowing_to_china_america_should_take_it_back_1201070.html