Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative has plowed billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in Africa. That’s given Beijing prime access to the mining resources that will underpin the upcoming technology, energy and transport revolutions.

Now the US has fully awakened to China’s ambitions. President Joe Biden is championing new investment in a railway that will transport copper and other minerals from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Angolan port of Lobito. But is it too late for the US to catch up?