The entry of major U.S. institutional capital, DFC de-risking mechanisms, and infrastructure funding along the Lobito Corridor offers genuine opportunities to diversify the nation’s investor base, upgrade legacy transport networks, and re-balance a decades-long single-market dependency. However, if these strategic agreements continue to operate as transactional “minerals-for-security” bargains negotiated under conditions of executive opacity and territorial distress, they risk repeating the extraversion patterns of the past.