Since his first term, Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped United States policy to confront China, which he views as the primary threat to American dominance.
The Trump administration has made breaking free from dependence on Chinese rare earths an absolute strategic priority. For its offensive in this field, it relies on GreenMet.
Founded by CEO Drew Horn, he was in Yaoundé a few months ago for a meeting that received little attention. Drew Horn is a former Trump national security official who served as senior advisor to the Director of National Intelligence. He is the visible face of an American program whose associates are former close collaborators and trusted confidants of Donald Trump, including Georges Sorial (former legal advisor to Donald Trump) and Keith Schiller (former Director of Security for the Trump Organization).
At the heart of the American strategy, led by Drew Horn and GreenMet, a delegation of high-ranking US officials was in Cameroon to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) whose content was never commented on by the American group. However, we know that American Renaissance Minerals (ARM), directly linked to GreenMet, is now in pole position for the Nkamouna nickel and cobalt project. And that is not all: Washington also has rare earths in its sights.
Donald Trump is so committed to his ambition for Cameroon that he circumvented the US Congress restriction excluding Cameroon from AGOA. The US president now relies on the American Chamber of Commerce in Cameroon (AmCham) for trade agreements.
Unlike China, which is present in the DRC for strategic minerals, the United States — which aims to invest in processing to reduce the carbon footprint in the USA — has conditioned its support for the government on transparency in the extractive and legal sectors. American intelligence reportedly intervened following EITI revelations about illegal gold trafficking; Washington is working with Yaoundé to denounce those responsible for this plunder.
And the US does not intend to stop there. American diplomacy has cut by more than half the number of African countries allowed to issue US visas. Among the 20 countries selected out of 50 in Africa is Cameroon. On the security front, in eight months, President Paul Biya successively received in Yaoundé: General Dagvin Anderson, then commander of AFRICOM, in September 2025, and Lieutenant General John William Brennan Jr., deputy commander of AFRICOM, in May 2026.
Improving the business climate is a priority for Washington: “I would sincerely like to see more American companies invest in Cameroon, develop trade relations, and create partnerships, including joint ventures between US and Cameroonian companies. This benefits both countries: it creates jobs in the United States, supports American industry — which is a priority of President Trump — and also boosts the Cameroonian economy,” said Christopher Lamora earlier this year after a one-on-one meeting with President Paul Biya.
Washington intends to take up the challenge of China, which has invested more than $700 billion in 49 African countries.
Some observers of Trump’s policy see in his strategy a desire to transform target countries such as Cameroon, Nigeria, and Kenya, in the image, in their time, of the “Asian dragons” (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore).
