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The mining connection · Updated October 13, 2026

Rose Lake’s adviser & the Ivanhoe China dispute

J. Peter Pham appeared on Rose Lake’s advisory roster. He now leads Ivanhoe Atlantic, whose African mining and rail project has drawn a congressional challenge over Chinese-linked interests and overlapping corporate leadership.

Political credentials, commercial reach

From U.S. envoy to Rose Lake adviser and mining executive

Pham served as a U.S. special envoy for Africa’s Great Lakes and Sahel regions. Rose Lake listed him as an adviser in October 2024. Ivanhoe Atlantic’s company page identifies him as Executive Chairman & Interim CEO.

His roles show the reach of the network Rose Lake advertised: an investment firm co-founded by a congresswoman’s spouse presented a senior Africa-policy figure as an adviser. Pham’s leadership of Ivanhoe Atlantic places that connection alongside a consequential dispute over mining, infrastructure and U.S. policy.

The documented link is Pham’s advisory role. The cited corporate records establish no ownership stake in Ivanhoe Atlantic for Rose Lake or Mynett.

The ownership structure

Two Ivanhoe companies and a shared founder

Ivanhoe Mines

A separate company, Ivanhoe Mines reported that CITIC Metal Africa Investments held 24.78% of its voting shares and Zijin affiliate Gold Mountains held 13.03% in its April 29, 2024 proxy. Together, those dated holdings totaled 37.81%. They describe Ivanhoe Mines’ ownership, not Ivanhoe Atlantic’s.

2024 proxy, printed page 12 (opens in a new tab)

The December 2025 challenge

Moolenaar questioned the project’s safeguards

In a December 9, 2025 letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Rep. John Moolenaar challenged the safeguards surrounding a $1.8 billion mining and rail project involving Guinea and Liberia. He cited shared leadership and Chinese-linked holdings in Ivanhoe Mines, using a roughly 40% figure drawn from the earlier proxy.

The letter’s concern was whether overlapping corporate interests could compromise a project promoted as serving U.S. strategic goals. That is Moolenaar’s allegation. Ivanhoe Atlantic’s separate ownership structure is essential to evaluating it.

The FCC’s telecom restrictions

The FCC’s Covered List includes international services provided by Pacific Networks Corp. and its subsidiary ComNet (USA) LLC, added September 20, 2022. The designation applies to the listed services and entities, rather than every business associated with CITIC.

For Rose Lake, the significance is the caliber and commercial reach of the advisers it used to market itself. Pham’s place on that roster warrants attention. A claim that Omar, Mynett or Rose Lake owned or profited from this mining project would require financial evidence beyond the advisory connection.

Read the documents

The source documents

House financial disclosures, court filings, archived company pages and the reporting cited in this investigation. Updated October 13, 2026.

Archived team

Mining appendix