South Africa has put a new offer on the table for the United States, and it’s about far more than selling rocks. At a Critical Minerals Roundtable held in New York on September 24, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau urged American companies to invest in processing, manufacturing and infrastructure in South Africa instead of treating the country as a source of raw materials.
The centrepiece of Pretoria’s pitch is a proposed Critical Minerals Investment Platform, designed to connect priority projects with U.S. investors and financing institutions. Alongside it, South Africa is proposing a bilateral working group that would identify projects and match them to America’s long-term supply needs, with a particular emphasis on ventures that combine mining with local refining and processing.
The timing is no accident. Minerals like cobalt, manganese, lithium and copper are now central to batteries, AI hardware and clean energy, and Africa holds a large share of them, yet most leave the continent unprocessed and come back as expensive finished technology. By pushing for refining and manufacturing on home soil, South Africa is trying to capture the jobs and profits that have historically gone elsewhere, while positioning itself as a serious partner in the global race to secure minerals outside Chinese supply chains.