The Electric: Why is the U.S. Snubbing Indonesian Nickel?

Last week, Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines and Singapore’s Trafigura signed a deal to ship cobalt and copper from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo west, on a 1,000-mile, U.S.-backed railroad, to an Angolan port on the Atlantic Ocean. With a $250 million loan for the rail project, Washington is attempting to break China’s grip on central Africa’s mineral wealth, and capture some of it for use in U.S.-manufactured electric vehicle batteries.

But China moved quickly to counter the U.S.: On Wednesday, a Chinese diplomat proposed a competing $1 billion plan to take Zambian copper east along a revitalized, 1,156-mile railway to a Tanzanian port on the Indian Ocean.