U.S. President Joe Biden has a full plate when it comes to foreign affairs—many of which are giving him more heartburn than he would ideally prefer heading into a tightly contested bid for re-election. But there is one under-the-radar project that his administration has pushed that could likely end up becoming his signature foreign policy legacy for decades to come—the Lobito Corridor. It's a multibillion dollar railway investment that connects central and southern Africa to a deep-water port in Angola that will become a pivotal piece of the supply chain fueling the expected $10 trillion global clean energy economy.
Named after a port city on the coast of Angola, the Lobito Corridor will eventually connect mining operations in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with an ocean outlet on the west coast of Africa from which these key raw materials can then be shipped to global markets. These mines, which hold vast deposits of cobalt, copper, lithium, and other critical minerals needed for making EV batteries and other high-tech components and hardware, are currently held back by an incredibly onerous logistics route that forces operators to truck........