Kenya is on the verge of finalising a landmark critical minerals agreement with the United States that will see the East African nation process its own resources domestically, President William Ruto has disclosed.
Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 Summit, where he held discussions with global leaders including US President Donald Trump, President Ruto said negotiations on the deal—covering rare earths and other strategic minerals—are at an advanced stage and could be concluded imminently.
The proposed arrangement forms part of a broader recalibration of Africa’s economic partnerships, with Kenya and other resource-rich states increasingly pushing to retain greater value from their mineral wealth through local processing and industrialization.
Ruto emphasized that the emerging framework is anchored on “mutually beneficial” terms, signalling a shift away from extractive models towards investment-led cooperation, job creation and value addition within Africa.
The agreement also reflects intensifying global competition over critical minerals essential for energy transition technologies and advanced manufacturing, as Western economies seek to reduce dependence on dominant supply chains.
Kenya’s growing reserves of niobium, lithium, graphite, copper and nickel are seen as central to its long-term industrial strategy, with the government positioning the country as a future processing hub rather than a raw materials exporter.
Ruto further stressed that Africa is pursuing diversified partnerships with global powers, insisting that the continent will not be forced into binary geopolitical alignments but will instead engage across multiple strategic fronts.
Against the backdrop of the G7 discussions, he also called for reforms to the global financial architecture to improve Africa’s access to capital, arguing that the continent’s challenge lies not in resource scarcity but in structural barriers to financing. In a message that underscored the shifting tone of global economic diplomacy, Ruto framed Africa not as a peripheral actor but as a central pillar in the next phase of global growth.