By Jessica Donati and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Joe Biden left for Angola on Sunday on a trip to fulfill a promise to visit Africa during his presidency and focus on a major U.S.-backed rail project aimed at diverting key minerals away from China.
The project, partially financed by a US loan, links the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean, offering a fast and efficient route for exports to the West.
At stake are huge reserves of minerals such as cobalt, which are found in the Congo and are a key component of batteries and other electronics. China is a major player in Congo, which is becoming a growing concern for Washington.
In September, China signed an agreement with Tanzania and Zambia to revive a competing rail line to Africa’s east coast.
While Biden’s trip comes in the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump is likely to support the railroad and remain a close partner to Angola when he returns to the White House in January, according to two officials who served in the previous Trump administration.
Tibor Nagy, a retired career ambassador and top envoy for Africa under the last Trump administration, said Trump is likely to have two main concerns regarding Africa. The first is competition with China and Russia, the second is access to critical minerals.
“This confirms both boxes,” he said in an interview, referring to the Lobito Atlantic Railway.
The project is backed by global commodities trader Trafigura, Portuguese construction group Mota-Engil and rail operator Vecturis. The American Development Finance Corporation secured a $550 million loan to rebuild the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) rail network from Lobito to the Congo.
Biden was scheduled to make a brief landing in West Africa’s Cape Verde on Monday morning to meet with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva there before flying to Angola, the White House said. During the two-day trip, they will visit the National Slavery Museum in the capital Luanda and stop at the port of Lobito on Wednesday.
His journey fulfills one of Africa’s vast promises. Others remain unrealized, such as obtaining two permanent seats for Africa on the UN Security Council.
Beyond the rail project, Washington has also done little to improve access to Africa’s vast mineral reserves that it says are critical to national security and has piled up other diplomatic setbacks.
This summer, it lost a major US spy base in Niger and has been unable to find an ally to house those assets. This leaves the US without a military foothold in the vast Sahel region, which has become a hotbed of Islamist militancy.
Angola has long cultivated close ties with China and Russia, but has recently moved closer to the West. Angolan officials say they want to work with any partner that can advance their plan to promote economic growth and hope the project will spur investment in a range of sectors.
“China gained importance only because Western countries probably didn’t pay much attention to Africa,” Angolan Transport Minister Ricardo Viegas d’Abreu said in an interview.
GROWING CONNECTIONS WITH ANGOLA
Biden’s visit reflects a turnaround in US ties with Angola after a complicated and bloody history. The US and the Soviet Union supported rival sides in the country’s 27-year civil war. Washington established relations with Angola in 1993, almost two decades after it gained independence.
“It is probably poetic justice that the United States is funding the reconstruction of this route that it contributed to the destruction of so many decades ago,” said Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika, a former Zambian government minister who also managed part of the railway that will form the Lobito Corridor.
Biden administration officials have said the Lobito rail project is not a one-off, but a trial run to prove that public-private partnerships work and will lead to other major infrastructure projects in Africa. They also hope to deepen US ties with Angola, including security cooperation.
Critics have questioned whether the project, which has no completion date, will meet its promised goals. A particular source of attention is the second phase, which would connect the railway with the east coast of Africa to Tanzania, potentially offering a competing route to China.
Judd Devermont, until recently Biden’s top adviser on Africa, said Congo wants to diversify its mining partners and dismissed the idea that linking the project to Tanzania’s eastern port undermines efforts to loosen Beijing’s grip on Congolese minerals.
“The Congolese have been very clear that they do not want to see the entire mining sector dominated by China,” he said in an interview. “It benefits everyone if there’s an easy way to move around the continent, whether it’s key minerals or just moving things from India to Brazil to New York.”
