House lawmakers butted heads Tuesday over how to prevent widespread corruption and Chinese influence in Africa’s mining sector as the Trump administration considers forging new deals there.
Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, chair of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, reintroduced legislation to block imports of cobalt and lithium from the Democratic Republic of Congo mined using child or forced labor in time for a hearing on the issue.
Smith said he modeled H.R. 2310 after the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law in late 2021 and applauded President Donald Trump’s executive order to bolster domestic mining and processing as a step in the right direction.
“The United States must break its dependence on minerals that finance the Chinese Communist Party — often extracted through forced child labor — and stop indirectly supporting the CCP’s efforts to fuel instability and regional conflict in Africa,” Smith said.
