Gold production and global power struggles are fuelling a brutal and escalating conflict in Mali, one of Africa’s biggest countries. With the UK being a key player in the global gold trade, what role do we have to play?
The battle to trade other people’s gold
London has a central position in the global gold trade, despite producing almost no gold itself. The Bank of England, for example, boasts that it’s:
the second-largest custodian of gold in the world
This is part of the lingering financial power that justifies the US empire keeping the UK on as a junior partner.
Gold has played an important role in the world for millennia, as a safe, stable way for powerful individuals in particular to store their wealth. And since the massive instability following the 2007-8 capitalist crisis, global demand for gold has increased.
The Bank of England stores around 400,000 bars of gold, many belonging to other central banks and businesses. It also occasionally freezes the gold of governments the US empire doesn’t like. And currently, the UK is seeking new regulations over the digitalisation of the gold trade to protect its key share in the trade from competition.
Gold was both the UK’s main export and main import in 2025. The UK was the second biggest importer (by value) after sector–dominator Switzerland, and the third biggest exporter after Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – neither of which mine gold themselves. Switzerland gets around half of its gold from the UK, the UAE, and Hong Kong.
Western nations and allies are dominant, whether they get gold from intermediaries, directly from the source country, or produce it themselves. Hong Kong (another trader with no gold mines) and China, however, are also major players. And both China and Russia have invested a lot in local production of gold.
Gold isn’t just an important resource for global elites and superpowers, though. It’s also very useful for criminal activity and waging war. And it can take on a prominent role in the conflicts of gold-producing nations like Mali and Sudan.
The UK and the UAE in gold-rich Sudan
The UAE’s predecessor was once a British protectorate. And after independence, the dictatorship became a key Western ally and massive importer of Western arms. In the wake of the Arab Spring, meanwhile, the UAE joined Saudi Arabia in decimating Yemen (another former British outpost in the region).
The UAE has also played a key role in the devastating civil war in Sudan (another of the UK’s ex-colonies). As Genocide Watch has explained, the UAE has been:
financing and arming genocide in Sudan
Africa produces about a quarter of the world’s gold. And while the warring parties in Sudan were already competing for gold and other resources before 2023, Chatham House has insisted that:
the fight to control gold assets was one of the drivers of the conflict.
After 2011, Sudan prioritised developing its gold production, and rapidly became one of Africa’s main producers. And most of the country’s gold goes to the UAE, either directly or via other nations. The UAE has so far escaped accountability for its alleged involvement in Sudan and other regional conflicts from Libya to Western Africa.
The UK and the UAE in oil-rich Libya and beyond
The UK’s mid-20th-century protectorate in Libya ushered in a monarchy hosting UK and US military bases. This changed when Muammar Gaddafi took control in 1969. And after NATO finally got rid of him and destabilised Libya in 2011, the UAE helped dictator Khalifa Haftar (a former CIA asset) to gain control of the oil-rich areas of Libya.
The chaotic Western toppling of Gaddafi unleashed an escalation of conflict in the neighbouring region, with cheap weapons flowing freely. Tuareg people who had long wanted autonomy in neglected northern Mali, for example, returned from Libya just as Mali’s democracy was flailing under a corrupt government.
Al-Qaeda and other extremists also benefited from Libya’s collapse, growing their strength in Mali and elsewhere.
The UAE is one regional power seeking to ensure its influence and access to resources amid this escalating violence and instability. Gold was the UAE’s main import in 2024, and the country has a record of trading in conflict gold. As of 2023, Mali and Sudan were among the major African gold exporters to the UAE.
Mali and the Sahel: the gold-rich ‘epicentre of terror’
Much of Africa’s gold comes from the vibrant, diverse, and incredibly resource-rich Sahel region below the Sahara Desert (Mali, for example, has Africa’s third-largest gold reserves). But this semi-arid region has become the “epicentre of global terrorism” in recent years, suffering “over half of all terrorism-related deaths”.
The Sahel conflicts have been getting worse and worse since Libya’s collapse, with the region becoming a frontline in a brutal global resource war as its gold takes on an increasingly important role in the global economic system. Cocaine traffickers have also been using the region as a key stepping stone from South America to Europe.
Western-led attempts to secure a military solution in Mali both cemented local animosity and failed to address the economic roots of ordinary people’s discontent. This doomed strategy has led numerous Sahel states to ditch longstanding links with the West (France in particular) and chart an alternative course.
Mali and others, for example, have sought Russian support to fight back against non-state militants rather than seeking a negotiated solution. Russia in turn has doubled down on backing Mali’s military regime against rebel advances, benefiting from preferential access to gold in the process.
The possibility of harnessing Mali’s resource wealth for development
Allegations of war crimes and political repression don’t help the Malian regime’s image. But it has taken some steps to use the gold trade in its favour.
For example, the government has increased regulation and challenged the traditional domination of Western mining firms with better tax enforcement and contract renegotiation. It has reportedly recovered billions in taxes, saying it will channel $800m into public infrastructure projects.
Mali has also collaborated with China on exploiting what may be Africa’s biggest lithium deposits. The country also has large amounts of uranium.
If the government actually harnesses resource wealth to serve ordinary people, it could challenge the divide-and-rule politics that have continued since colonial times and created national inequalities. And that could be a key element in securing peace.
The Russian factor, however…
Russia’s involvement in Mali has clearly attracted the attention of Western governments. And as Western elites probably hope the conflict turns into another quagmire for Russia, there absolutely are predictions that Mali is crashing towards state collapse.
In April, for example, Tuareg rebels focusing on ethnic rights officially coordinated with regional Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM after a process of rhetoric softening from the latter. This gave a big boost to the anti-government insurgency, which in July reached a turning point where the rebel alliance gained a real position of power.
JNIM hasn’t just targeted civilians. It has also developed a system of money generation including illegal mining, kidnappings, livestock theft, money laundering, and taxation. Gold mining in areas under its control, for example, returns around $30bn per year. This gold reportedly ends up in the UAE, Switzerland, and Turkey.
Malian and Russian authorities, meanwhile, claim the rebels have worked with ‘Ukrainian actors’ and probably got missiles and drones from Ukraine.
Ukraine, of course, has received hundreds of billions of euros in Western support (including vast amounts from the UK) since 2022. But the ongoing Western proxy war with Russia in Ukraine has only served to spark a new military-industrial revolution in Russia.
The suffering in Ukraine wasn’t inevitable, and could have ended early on in the conflict. The US and UK just didn’t want it to. Because it served business interests (at the expense of Ukrainian people, global food and energy supplies, and Western taxpayers witnessing declining public services).
Western elites hoped to deal a deadly blow to Russia in Ukraine, but it didn’t work. They may now be hoping that Russia stretches itself too far with its support for Mali and other African governments.
Terror and military rule spread in the Sahel region – beyond Mali’s borders
The terror of JNIM and other extremists hasn’t just hit Mali. It has been spreading across borders. Around two million people have had to leave their homes in Burkina Faso, for example, as a battle with insurgents has killed tens of thousands of people in the last decade.
Like Mali, Burkina Faso is currently under military rule. Leader Ibrahim Traoré has also received Russia’s backing in the war. Traoré has adopted some pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist rhetoric, but has also overseen repression of trade unionists, journalists, and civil society activists.
Mali and Burkina Faso also have a military ally in Niger, which has also been fighting against extremism since Libya’s collapse. The countries have formed their own bloc – the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Together, signalling their hardline approach in the absence of accountability, they have left the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Donald Trump regime, seeking impunity for US-Israeli genocide and other crimes in the Middle East, may be impressed with the AES approach of leaving the ICC. Because it has reengaged with the countries, apparently considering airstrikes in Mali and developing its relationship with Burkina Faso.
Another authoritarian Sahel nation, Chad, has had a complex relationship with Trump. But it recently responded to US pressure by also announcing its plan to leave the ICC. Bordering Sudan, Chad has reportedly functioned as an arms pipeline funnelling UAE weapons to Sudanese rebel forces.
Peace is possible, but elites prefer power games
Mali’s suffering could end quickly if global superpowers refused to get involved unless Mali’s government fairly distributed the country’s wealth to its citizens, gave them a say over their lives, and allowed full accountability for crimes committed by all sides. And it could end if wealthy nations like the UK refused to accept illegal gold.
Mali’s suffering will not end with further escalation of the conflict.
The same is true of other conflicts in the Sahel and more widely. People only support extremism when they’re desperate, angry, or isolated, or when extremists have so much economic power that challenging them would meaning risking their lives. And most people would prefer to reach a peaceful agreement than to fight endlessly.
The genocide in Gaza, however, has shown Western billionaires’ commitment to getting what they want via whatever military abomination they can get away with. Their interest is not widespread human wellbeing or peace. It’s accumulating more wealth and power.
So if we want to stop the suffering of ordinary people in Mali and elsewhere, there is one key battle. And it’s against the billionaire class and the politicians who happily serve its misanthropic interests while screwing everyone else over.
Featured image via AFP
By Ed Sykes
