3 November 2026
To the desk,
First, Washington has found a new lever on Kigali
On 2 November the Trump administration told Congress and the Rwandan government it intends to strip Rwanda of its African Growth and Opportunity Act preferences from 1 January 2027, covering more than 1,800 tariff lines. It is the third blow in five weeks: Treasury sanctioned the Rwandan Defence Forces and their generals on 2 March, then on 28 October it sanctioned the defence ministry itself and the Zigama military savings bank, accusing it of routing payments for arms purchases and of handling gold moved out of M23-held territory in eastern DRC. The USTR's complaint lists six grievances, trade and investment barriers, rule of law, political pluralism, labour rights, human rights, and threats to American security interests in the region. None of it mentions the DRC by name, but the gold-to-Kigali financial trail is now explicitly the United States Treasury's problem, not just Kinshasa's.
Second, Mulondo reopens after a year
A year after a trench collapse killed roughly thirty artisanal diggers at the Mulondo site in Lualaba, mines minister Louis Watum has brokered an accord between the COMIKAN cooperative and PAJECLEM, the operator that took over the old CHEMAF concession. PAJECLEM cedes two mining squares to the artisanal cooperative while keeping industrial rights over the rest of the site. It ends more than a year of standoff over access. Separately, Congolese authorities report a wider crackdown that has seized hundreds of vehicles and thousands of tonnes of copper and cobalt from unlicensed operators, part of the same push to formalise artisanal flows before they reach export.
Third, Europe gets a copper consolidator
ACG has closed a $220 million deal for Blue Moon, stitching together copper operations in Türkiye and Norway into what the company is billing as a north-south European production network, with output expansion planned at both ends. It is a small deal by DRC or Chilean standards but it is new European tonnage at a moment when Santiago's own supply picture keeps softening, Chile's refined copper surplus forecast widened again this week, one line here, no more, that one has had its run.
Fourth, Lusaka finds a billion-kwacha hole
Zambia's Financial Intelligence Centre says it has uncovered a mineral smuggling syndicate moving roughly K1 billion through foreign currency channels, the latest sign that the gap between what leaves Zambian mine gates and what clears customs is still being actively worked by someone other than the taxman.
P.S.
Brent fell 9.9% on the day to $103.45 a barrel, gasoline and diesel futures dropped 7.9% and 4.3% respectively, and sugar #11 slid 5.5% to 18.39 cents a pound, a broad risk-off session across the energy and softs complex with no single headline attached to it yet. The Baltic Dry Index eased to 2,590, down 58 points. Sunshine Silver is weighing a mill expansion to 2,000 tonnes a day, double the capacity in its original study.