President Joe Biden arrived in Angola on Monday for his long-awaited first presidential visit to Sub-Saharan Africa and will use the three-day trip to counter China’s influence by highlighting an ambitious US-backed railway project.
The Lobito Corridor railway redevelopment in Zambia, DR Congo and Angola aims to advance US presence in a region rich in the critical minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles, electronic devices and clean energy technologies.
Biden first stopped in the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde for a brief, closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Ulisses Correiae Silva.
In Angola, Biden plans to meet with Angolan President Joao Lourenco, visit the National Slavery Museum and travel to the port city of Lobito for a look at the rail project.
'Johnny-come-lately trip'
His visit comes with weeks left in his presidency, as Republican Donald Trump prepares to take office on January 20.
Biden promised to visit Africa last year after reviving the US-Africa Summit in December 2022. The trip was pushed back to 2024 and delayed again this October because of Hurricane Milton, reinforcing a sentiment among Africans that their continent is still low priority for Washington.
The last US president to visit Sub-Saharan Africa was Barack Obama in 2015. Biden did attend a United Nations climate summit in Egypt in North Africa in 2022.
“I just kind of push back on the premise that this is some Johnny-come-lately trip at the very end,” national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on board Air Force One on the way to Angola, noting that top administration officials had visited Africa, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
Critical minerals
“This is something he (Biden) has been focused on since he became president of the United States.”
Critical minerals are a key field for US-China competition and China has a stranglehold on Africa’s critical minerals.
The US has for years built relations in Africa through trade, security and humanitarian aid.
The 800-mile (1,300-kilometre) railway upgrade is a different move and has shades of China’s Belt and Road foreign infrastructure strategy that has surged ahead.
'No longer the story'
The Biden administration has called the corridor one of the president’s signature initiatives, yet Lobito’s future and any change in the way the United States engages with a continent of 1.4 billion that’s leaning heavily toward China depends on the incoming administration of President-elect Trump.
“President Biden is no longer the story,” said Mvemba Dizolele, the director of the Africa Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “Even African leaders are focused on Donald Trump.”
The US has committed $3 billion to the Lobito Corridor and related projects, administration officials said, alongside financing from the European Union, the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations, a Western-led private consortium and African banks.
“A lot is riding on this in terms of its success and its replicability,” said Tom Sheehy, a fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan federal research institution.
Change of administration
He called it one of the flagships for the G7’s new Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which was driven by Biden and aims to reach other developing nations as a response to China’s Belt and Road.
Many are optimistic that the Lobito project, which isn’t due for completion until well after Biden has left office, will survive a change of administration and be given a chance.
It goes some way to blunting China, which has bipartisan backing and is high on Trump’s to-do list.
“As long as they keep labeling Lobito one of the main anti-China tools in Africa, there is a certain likelihood that it’s going to keep being funded,” said Christian-Géraud Neema, who analyses China-Africa relations.
'Game-changer'
Kirby said the Biden administration hoped Trump and his team saw the value in Lobito but “we are still in office. We still have 50 days. This is a key major development not just for the United States and our foreign policy goals in Africa, but for Africans.”
The Lobito Corridor will be an upgrade and extension of a railway line from the copper and cobalt mines of northern Zambia and southern DR Congo to Angola’s Atlantic Ocean port of Lobito, a route west for Africa’s critical minerals. It also ultimately aims to extend from Zambia and DR Congo to Africa’s east coast through Tanzania and be a coast-to-coast rail link.
While Biden’s administration called it a “game-changer” for US investment in Africa, it’s little more than a starting point for the US and its partners with China dominant in the mining in Zambia and DR Congo. DR Congo has more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, most of which is heading to China to reinforce its critical mineral supply chain that the US and Europe have to rely on.
In Angola, Biden will announce new developments on health, agribusiness, security cooperation as well as the Lobito Corridor, White House officials said.
Value-based diplomacy
The visit, the first by a sitting US president to Angola, will “highlight that remarkable evolution of the US-Angola relationship,” said Frances Brown, a special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council.
It will also draw attention to a perennial challenge for America’s value-based diplomacy in Africa. International rights groups have used Biden’s trip to criticise the Lourenço government’s authoritarian shift.
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