🔵What’s So Good About Tariffs?🔵

The US and China are racing to eliminate trade barriers for African countries. These "goodwill gestures" are framed as a gift for African business — but in reality, they’re a one-way ticket to the "Dutch disease."

🌐 Less than two weeks after Trump extended the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) — a Bush-era law offering duty-free access to the US market for over 30 African countries — Xi Jinping did the same, but for all African nations and with no strings attached, starting May 1.

Both moves are widely touted as a gift from the big to struggling African businesses. But there’s an elephant in the room: complex industrial goods from Africa will never be competitive in the already saturated markets of the U.S. and China.

⏩Here’s a prediction: as soon as China lifts all tariffs on May 1, the first exports to surge will be oil, mineral ores and semi-processed raw materials. The real competition over zero tariffs for Africa is a tug-of-war over primary commodity export flows.

❗️ Why is even this bad? Because lower export costs for raw materials make investors even less interested in building factories — why bother when shipping unprocessed goods to China just became even more profitable?

In the end, governments will face the dilemma of artificially restricting their own exports — through quotas and bans. The sad part is, few authorities seem to realize this.

➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🇳🇬⛏️ Tragedy in Nigeria’s Plateau State

What is Known of Nigeria's Worst Mine Disaster Since Late September

🌐 On Tuesday, February 18, in Nigeria's Plateau State at least 37 people died while working in an underground mine.

🔸According to police reports, early Tuesday morning, the victims were deep in a poorly ventilated tunnel and inhaled a "toxic cocktail" of gases—including carbon monoxide (CO), lead oxide, and sulfur compounds.

🔸Another 26 people were hospitalized. The bodies of the deceased have been released to their families for burial.

💥 The high death toll naturally led many to assume an explosion followed a gas leak. But police specifically noted that no signs of an explosion were found. It’s harder to grasp that dozens could die from a lack of safety equipment and invisible gas rather than a dramatic blast sparked by a stray flame.

Authorities have ordered the immediate shutdown of the site and launched an investigation into the causes and legality of the mining operations. The area has been cordoned off to prevent further entries into the tunnels.

Last time when a comparable mining tragedy (besides those linked to armed attacks) struck Nigeria was in late September, when a pit collapse in Nigeria's Zamfara State claimed 13 lives.

➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵Central Bank Goes for Obscure Schemes🔵

🌐 Bloomberg reports the Central Bank of the Democratic Republic of Congo plans to buy gold from a state‑owned company to bolster official reserves.

DRC Gold Trading SA will be the partner of the Central Bank, providing gold from Congo’s hand-dug — or artisanal — mining sites.

⏩ However, it is not specified whether purchases will be settled in Congolese francs or in dollars — a critical difference for inflation, monetary control and who bears the cost.

🔴If the Central Bank pays in Congolese francs, this may endanger fiscal stability — triggering inflation that could leak into prices. But for the Congolese Central Bank it would almost the cheapest way to build up gold reserves, paying artisanal miners in currency it issues itself.

🔴If paid in dollars, inflation may be avoided — however, at the expense of the DRC's foreign currency reserves.

➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵Ivory Coast's Biggest Gas Discovery in 5 Years🔵

🌐Italian Eni has announced a new discovery named Calao South in Ivory Coast's Block CI-501 — a find reportedly holding up to 5.0 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) of gas and 450 million barrels of condensate.

🔸Eni says the new discovery, situated 3 km under the seabed, is the country’s second largest gas discovery after Baleine project — Eni's own 2021 discovery.

🔸 In both cases the control stays concentrated in the caring Italian hands (Eni 90%, Petroci 10% in the new discovery) while the state watches the cash flow.

More gas production by Eni centralizes leverage in hands of a single multinational — at the time when Ivory Coast is actively trying to bring its neighbours into its gas energy fold.

➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🌐 Weekly News Digest [ February 16 – February 22 ]

That was a week when Algeria and Niger suddenly revived the long-stalled giant Trans-Saharan gas pipeline.

💡 ...And here are more key highlights:

🇩🇿 Algeria

— Algeria and Niger agree to launch the 4,000-km Trans-Saharan gas pipeline after Ramadan

🇨🇩 DR Congo

— Central Bank plans to buy gold from a state‑owned company
— Belgium blocks US firm from accessing colonial‑era geological archives

🇨🇮 Ivory Coast

— Eni discovers Ivory Coast's second largest gas field

🇳🇪 Niger

— Mines Minister Abarchi sheds light on uranium sale talks with Russia, China, US

🇳🇬 Nigeria

— President Tinubu demands NNPC transfer its revenue after $4.3bn profit
— 37 people dead and 26 injured in a mine disaster in Plateau State

🌍 Global

— Trump extends AGOA; Xi grants zero tariffs to all African imports from May 1

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Not Big Enough to Mention: Malawi Sidelined in Malawi-US Resource Deal

🌐 Australian company Sovereign Metals, which works at Malawi's Kasiya rutile-graphite mine, and US trading firm Traxys have signed a memorandum of understanding, naming the American firm as the future trader of Malawian graphite.

🇺🇸 Traxys is one of the three trading houses designated to procure minerals for the US Project Vault supply‑chain initiative, which means that Malawian graphite will be shipped to the US as soon as the Australian begin production.

However, the deal avoids mentioning one small, but quite significant detail — the role of Malawi's government, which was not present at the signing ceremony.

❗️ This is a meaningful detail, since in most cases such agreements, bound to have geopolitical implications, are usually preceded by intergovernmental handshakes — only afterwards comes B2B.

Although the Kasiya mine is the largest rutile (a form of titanium) deposit on Earth, the US apparently sees Malawi itself as too small to consult with. Probably Trump has never even heard of it.

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵Dream Deal: Everything for Recognition🔵

🌐 Somaliland says it will give the United States access to its minerals and offer military bases — trading territory and deposits for the one thing it has lacked for 35 years — recognition.

💬We are willing to give exclusive (access to our minerals) to the United States. Also, we are open to offer military bases to the United States, Khadar Hussein Abdi, minister of the presidency said on Saturday.

🔸 Somaliland president Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi already suggested in recent weeks granting Israel privileged access to its mineral resources.

🔸 Somaliland declared independence in 1991 but remained unrecognised by UN members until Israel’s recognition in December 2025.

Beyond the issue of Somalia's long non-existent territorial integrity, the situation is risking spilling into a rift between US and its allies: with Israel betting on Somaliland, the original Somalia is moving towards gas partnership with Turkey.

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Nosebleeds in French Media: Foreign Outlets Fuel the Anti-China Crusade in Africa

🌐 Four nosebleed cases, including three children, in Kolwezi, DRC, became the topic of an article by the French radio station RFI, which blames them on emissions from a nearby plant owned by Ruashi Mining.

As if by surprise, the pollution issue comes up in the French media exactly at the moment when this Chinese firm is quarrelling with the local authorities over land rights.

💬He bleeds a lot at night, we stay standing to watch him,” the children’s father reportedly told RFI's reporters.

🔸The nosebleed report is part of a coordinated campaign against Chinese firms in the DRC. Since early February, Ruashi Mining and other firms featuring Chinese investments have already been accused of "churches disappearing" and "plants not growing".

🔸 Ruashi’s concession is commercially significant and politically sensitive: the operation sits on a large copper‑cobalt deposit, and local tensions are already reported. Since February 18 the firm has been openly at odds with the authorities over land rights.

Have the Chinese violated environmental regulations in the past and are they doing so now? Certainly, yes. But the truth is that the invocation of the environmental issues today — and especially in this part of Africa — is always a propaganda tool. What matters is what purposes it serves.

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵De Beers Buyers See Shrinking Prices🔵

🌐Diamond trader De Beers has been marked down again: the once-iconic company now costs just $2.3bn, with no less than 3 governments in line to buy it.

🔸Botswana, Namibia, and Angola's governments want equity in De Beers — however, the current value reduction once again proves that this may not be the best way to invest public funds.

🔸 While Botswana’s President Duma Boko seems to be determined to buy the company's controlling stake, their Angolan counterparts are more cautious, having quietly backed down their own majority stake ambitions.

💬Taking the majority stake within luxury commodities is very dangerous because it depends on the market... So to de-risk that, we have to have a portion that is sustainable for our economy. And that range is between 20% and 30%, we are happy about that, Paulo Tanganha, Angola's national director of mineral resources said in early February.

⏩ After all, the sad truth behind the talk of African governments buying a Western company that mines diamonds on their land — no one would have offered it to them if diamonds still brought profits to the current owners.

With diamond prices sliding and lab-grown stones on the offensive, the aspiring buyers had better wait a little bit more and the company's current English owner will pay itself to dispose of it.

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🇹🇷 Reaching Further Than Ever: The need to protect its assets leads Turkey's navy to the Horn of Africa

🌐 Turkey is building a naval base in Somalia — a natural spillover of Turkey's consistent interest in extracting Somali gas and deterring Israel. Since December, Turkey has been progressively increasing the number of its gas drilling vessels off the coast of the Horn of Africa.

🔸 In December 2025, Turkey’s president said Ankara would start offshore gas drilling off Somalia in 2026 and add two new drilling vessels. In February 2026, Alparslan Bayraktar, the country's energy minister, dispatched the deep-sea drillship Cagri Bey to Somalia under naval escort for Turkey’s first offshore exploration abroad.

🔸 The construction of a new base coincides with the new drillship sails, as well as Israel's recognition of Somaliland. Three factors — gas exploration and extraction, the vulnerability of the civil fleet involved and Israel's attempts to take root in the region have made it almost inevitable.

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

A South Africa-based diamond miner presumed five trapped workers dead, and ran straight to court for liquidation.

🌐 Since February 17, lots of people in South Africa have been worried about the fate of the five miners trapped at Ekapa mine, Kimberley, after a mudslide flooded the shaft they worked in.

Yesterday, the mine owners reportedly announced that the workers are "now presumed deceased” and immediately filed for liquidation.

🔸Besides the fact that the move risks undermining any further rescue efforts, as well as leaving the relatives without proper recompense, this epitomizes everything that is wrong with diamonds in Africa.

People are saying this liquidation puts 1,200 jobs at risk — but this is also true for the whole diamond industry, which is actually dying.

⏩After investors withdraw the last profit from diamonds and pack up, what will remain is layoffs, shrinking budgets, and the same potholes, schools still falling apart, and a bigger hole in the ground.

✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow