LUANDA, Angola — Joe Biden on Tuesday used the first visit to Angola by a U.S. president to promote billions of dollars of investments in the sub-Saharan African nation and speak at a slavery museum, where he’ll acknowledge the trafficking of humans that once linked the nations’ economies.
What You Need To Know
- Joe Biden is using the first visit to Angola by a U.S. president to promote billions of dollars of investments in the sub-Saharan African nation
- He also will speak at a slavery museum
- Biden told Angolan President João Lourenço that “the United States is all in on Africa”
- Lourenço called Biden’s visit a key turning point in U.S.-Angola relations
“The United States is all in on Africa,” Biden told Angolan President João Lourenço, who called Biden’s visit a key turning point in U.S.-Angola relations dating back to the Cold War.
But even as the visit was meant to counter China’s influence on the African continent of over 1.4 billion people by showcasing a U.S. commitment of $3 billion for the Lobito Corridor railway redevelopment linking Zambia, Congo and Angola, China announced its own move.
The corridor across southern Africa is meant to make it easier to move raw materials for export and advance the U.S. presence in a region rich in critical minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles, electronic devices and clean energy technologies.
China already has heavy investments in mining and processing African minerals, and on Tuesday it announced it is banning exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, antimony and other high-tech materials. The announcement came a day after the U.S. expanded its list of Chinese technology companies subject to controls.
The U.S. for years has built relations in Africa through trade, security and humanitarian aid. The 800-mile (1,300-kilometer) railway upgrade is different, with shades of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure strategy in Africa and other parts of the world.
Biden will visit the coastal city of Lobito on Wednesday for a look at the corridor’s Atlantic Ocean outlet. The project also has drawn financing from the European Union, the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, a Western-led private consortium and African banks.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the corridor’s completion is “going to take years but there’s already been a lot of work put in.”
That means much of it may fall to Biden’s successor, Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.
Asked whether the project could proceed without support from Trump, Kirby said it was the Biden administration’s hope “that they see the value too, that they see how it will help drive a more secure, more prosperous, more economically stable continent.”
