For two decades, China’s strategy in Africa was straightforward: shower the continent with opaque and corrupt loans to build roads, ports, and power plants, securing influence and natural resources for itself. But that lending boom is winding down and the bills are coming due.

As China shifts from serving as Africa’s ATM to its debt collector, the U.S. has a generational opening to become the partner of choice for a disillusioned continent — if Washington moves with speed, purpose, and transparency.

The lending retrenchment is real. Chinese sovereign lending to Africa has fallen sharply from its 2018 peak — down roughly 71 percent by 2023 — even as Chinese trade and investment attention tilts toward mining and critical minerals. That means fewer new loans but more pressure to collect on the old ones. The new reality is hard-nosed recovery on opaque and unpopular contracts.

Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway shows what’s at stake. The rail line was sold as a cost-saving connection from Mombasa to Nairobi to Kampala and beyond. Instead, after billions in Chinese finance and........

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