CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A proposed U.S.-backed investment in a South African rare-earth project is emerging as an unlikely bright spot in relations strained by disputes over Israel, refugee policy and South Africa’s growing ties to China.
Two giant sand dunes near an abandoned chemical facility in South Africa have given Africa’s richest nation an opening for a reset with U.S. President Trump, who last year accused the South African government of standing by idly as a “White genocide” occurs in the country.
Mr. Trump followed up by disinviting South Africa from the Group of 20 meetings the U.S. will host in December.
But South Africa’s extensive reserves of platinum-group metals and other essential minerals are becoming increasingly important to the U.S., and American industry and policy leaders are intrigued by the Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project — an innovative operation focused on extracting metals from waste byproducts from historic fertilizer and phosphoric acid production.
Phalaborwa, a small town in far northeastern South Africa, not far from the border with Mozambique, is home to an open-pit copper and phosphorus mine that is the country’s largest — more than a mile across and almost 2,700 feet deep.
The decades of digging created two massive mining-waste piles that Rainbow Rare Earths, a London-based mining company, plans to reprocess and recycle in order to extract valuable rare earth minerals. The dunes consist of 35 million tons of phosphogypsum, a byproduct of mining waste from processing phosphate rock for acid and fertilizer production.
The recycling effort has attracted Washington’s attention: The U.S. International Development Finance Corp. — created during the first Trump administration to find new sources of rare-earth minerals in a global market dominated by China — took a $50 million equity investment stake in the project in 2023.
But political difficulties between the White House and the government in Pretoria remain significant. South Africa’s mineral wealth. both sides agree, can be a starting point for easing some of those tensions.
About 25 officials from both countries met in Johannesburg on May 6 to discuss cooperation on strategic minerals.
U.S. Ambassador L. Brent Bozell III attended alongside two South African deputy ministers, according to the South African newspaper Daily Maverick. South African media also reported that representatives from the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the DFC attended.
The meeting marked the highest-level bilateral engagement between Pretoria and Washington this year.
Relations appeared to improve when Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement on April 27, coinciding with South Africa’s annual holiday marking the end of apartheid.
“We remain open to constructive engagement where our interests align,” Mr. Rubio said.
South African officials told The Times that the statement was viewed inside the ruling African National Congress as a meaningful opening for renewed engagement.
South Africa’s unique geology has long connected it to the global economy. During the gold and diamond rushes of the late nineteenth century, South African mining camps became so famous that settlements in California adopted names such as “Johannesburg” and “Randsburg.” American investment and mining equipment have long played a role in the country’s resource sector.
While gold and diamonds were key minerals in previous eras, South Africa today offers minerals critical to the 21st-century American economy.
The nation of 65 million has some of the world’s largest reserves of platinum group metals. South Africa is the largest supplier of such minerals to the United States. It is also the largest supplier of chromium and military-grade vanadium, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think-tank.
These minerals are essential for electric vehicles, artificial intelligence infrastructure, missile systems and advanced aerospace technologies.
U.S. lawmakers have increasingly warned that dependence on foreign-controlled mineral supply chains poses vulnerabilities for both American industry and national security.
The International Energy Agency reports that China accounts for 59% of global rare-earth production and controls 91% of refining capacity. China also produces 94% of the heavy magnets used to recover rare-earth elements.
Although potentially viable deposits exist elsewhere, including in the United States, South Africa offers established refining expertise, technical capacity and comparatively lower production costs for rare earth and critical mineral mining efforts.
“South Africa welcomes the chance to reengage with the West, with mining leading the agenda,” said Raheem Nkumane, a special envoy for the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. “The government’s chief priority is developing our mineral potential. Our countries share a deep history of mining collaboration. Differences over issues like Gaza may persist, but that does not prevent meaningful economic engagement as we continue to forge a new relationship.”
Relations between Washington and Pretoria, never especially warm, have deteriorated since Mr. Trump’s return to office. The United States has opposed South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as well as its role in the BRICS — an anti-Western pact of large economies that informally opposes the role of the U.S. dollar in the world economy.
In addition to South Africa, BRICS member countries include Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Trump administration chose not to attend the G20 Heads of State Summit in South Africa due to what Mr. Trump described as a “White genocide” against Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch, French Huguenot and German settlers who began arriving in South Africa in 1652.
The November 2025 G20 summit marked the first time the gathering was held in Africa. The same month, the Markan, the largest vessel in the Iranian navy, visited Cape Town during a BRICS naval exercise. Washington sharply criticized Iran’s participation in the exercise.
The vessel is believed to have been destroyed during U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran in March 2026 after returning to its home port.
South Africa is home to approximately 2.7 million Afrikaners, and during much of the 20th century, Afrikaners occupied a dominant position in South Africa’s political and economic life. Much of this dominance was codified into the apartheid system of segregation that favored White South Africans. Following the end of apartheid in 1994, political authority shifted to the country’s democratic majority government.
“We have concerns about our community’s challenges and safety within the current context,” said an Afrikaner official working with South Africa’s security services who requested anonymity. “Farmers have been killed, and it’s not being investigated. Being a White farmer is one of the most dangerous jobs in South Africa and the government has done little to ensure our property rights. This is why a good many want to leave.”
According to the Refugee Processing Center, the United States admitted 6,069 South African refugees between Oct. 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026. All but three of the refugees admitted during that period were Afrikaners, while the remaining three were Afghan refugees settled in Colorado.
“Crime affects all communities, with Black South Africans remaining the principal victims, while white farmers and rural communities also deserve protection,” said Muhammad Khalid Sayed, the African National Congress opposition leader in the Western Cape Provincial Legislature. “We welcome President Trump’s interest in expanding U.S. investment in South Africa, particularly in mining and industry. The long-term answer to crime is not inflammatory rhetoric but investment and job creation.”
As business leaders told The Washington Times at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town earlier this year, projects such as the Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project demonstrate the potential for a new era of sustained U.S.-South Africa economic engagement.
When production begins in 2028, the site is expected to produce neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium from the abandoned industrial tailings at the site. Commercial production is projected to continue at the site in South Africa’s Limpopo Province for at least 16 years.
Whether broader political disagreements can be managed remains uncertain. Yet as Washington seeks alternatives to Chinese-dominated mineral supply chains, South Africa’s vast resource wealth may provide both governments.
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