Former Trump administration diplomat Peter Pham is no longer in government yet he remains one of Washington’s most influential voices on African affairs and, notably, one of the Beltway’s most outspoken critics of China’s engagement on the continent.

He’s particularly concerned about China’s dominance of the cobalt mining sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and seems to believe that President Félix Tshisekedi is open to the idea of reducing China’s share of the market in favor of Western alternatives, namely from the United States (based on the available evidence, however, there is currently no indication that President Tshisekedi is actually doing that).