The U.S. President’s Son Involved in Controversy About a Chinese Mining Deal in the DR Congo

Hunter Biden walks to Marine One on the Ellipse outside the White House May 22, 2021, in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski / AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter (photo), is once again at the center of a rapidly expanding controversy, this time about the sale of U.S. mining company Freeport-McMoRan’s stake in the massive Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine in the DR Congo to the Chinese mining giant China Molybdenum.

The younger Biden, according to the New York Times, was not directly involved in the 2016 transaction that helped to solidify China’s dominance in the strategic cobalt supply chain, but he was a board member on a firm that helped to facilitate the deal.

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