Zambia Won: Copper Nation Picks a Side
Copper prices have remained elevated throughout 2026 as the global clean energy transition drives industrial demand.
Zambia Won: Copper Nation Picks a Side
Hakainde Hichilema has secured a second term as Zambia's president following a campaign described by observers as among the most turbulent in the country's post-independence history, according to the New York Times. The result places Hichilema at the center of a geopolitical contest that has less to do with Lusaka and everything to do with what lies beneath Zambian soil.
Zambia holds some of the world's largest untapped copper reserves — a metal that every serious power on earth now considers strategic. The Trump administration has made no secret of its interest, seeking greater access to Zambian resources as part of a broader push to reduce Western dependency on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains. Hichilema's re-election does not resolve that pressure; it simply restarts the negotiation with the same man across the table.
Copper prices have remained elevated throughout 2026 as the global clean energy transition drives industrial demand. Zambia's ability to translate that into sovereign wealth — rather than debt-for-access arrangements with foreign powers — will define whether a second Hichilema term means anything for ordinary Zambians, or merely reconfigures who extracts the benefit.
The Trump administration will be watching. So will Beijing. Hichilema has positioned himself as non-aligned, but non-alignment becomes harder to sustain when everyone wants what is underneath your ground.
A second term is not a mandate. It is a countdown.
