Joe Biden will begin a two-day visit to Angola on Monday in his first and last trip to Africa as US president, as Luanda moves closer to Washington after decades of ties to Moscow and Beijing.
The meeting with his Angolan counterpart João Lourenço, originally planned for October as part of a pledge to visit Africa, comes just weeks before Donald Trump, who called African nations “shithole countries” during his first term, returns to the White House .
The US sought closer African ties after seeing other countries including China, Russia and the Gulf Statestake advantage of commercial and strategic opportunities. But the visit will be overshadowed by concerns on the continent about whether the new Trump administration will scuttle Biden’s reset of the relationship, observers say.
Peter Pham, who has been tipped as a possible assistant secretary of state for Africa in the Trump administration, said there could be significant continuity, although he expected the incoming president to demand greater “reciprocity” in trade and security relations and be less lenient with countries that are considered antagonistic to American interests.
Amos Hochstein, American envoy and close Biden adviser, recently complained that Washington was not “even competing” in Africa for much of the post-Cold War period.
Biden’s choice of Angola as the only African country he will visit, over traditionally closer allies like Kenya, underscores Washington’s changed priorities. The US has committed more than 3 billion dollars develop Corridor Lobito, railway line connecting the copper mining areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a port on the Atlantic coast of Angola.
“Americans are throwing money and political patronage into countries like Angola under the guise of development projects – but this is geopolitics,” said Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, professor of African politics at Oxford University.
After Angola gained independence in 1975, the US waged a secret war in the country for nearly two decades. It was aligned with South Africa’s apartheid government in backing the Unita rebel group that wants to topple the Moscow-backed People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, the party that still holds power.
Hochstein, who is considered the mastermind behind Washington’s support for the Lobito project, said: “A year ago, we still doubted whether the US could really rejuvenate investment in physical and rail infrastructure in Africa. No one believed, because we hadn’t done it for a long time.”
Lobito is expected to cost at least $10 billion in total with a planned expansion into Zambia’s Copperbelt province, according to estimates from Angolan Transport Minister Ricardo Viegas D’Abreu. It will include investments by US companies in telecommunications, bridges, agribusiness and 220 MW of solar energy with support 900 million dollars financing of the American Eximbank.
“This is not from pit to port. It’s an entire ecosystem,” said Judd Devermont, former senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, who Lobito described as the “marquee program” of Biden’s Africa policy.
Pham told the Financial Times: “Let’s be honest. It is about competition with China, but not exclusively about that.” He added that China’s dominance in the supply chain of critical minerals like copper does not serve US interests.
Manuel Domingos Augusto, former foreign minister of Angola, said: “We are now friends with the Americans . . . but, in the end, it’s about interests.”
Last week, Angola removed Alrosathe world’s largest diamond miner, from his country due to sanctions against the Russian state producer, a move interpreted as a friendly gesture towards the US.
António Cabral, CEO of Benguela Railway, the company responsible for passenger trains on the Lobito corridor, said: “Angola used to be the best friend of the Russians, then we became the best friend of the Chinese and now the Americans.”
But to counter Washington’s efforts in Africa, Beijing this year offered more than $1 billion to modernize the Tazara railway – built in the 1970s with Chinese aid under Mao Zedong – which links the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam to Zambia’s copper region.
Devermont said the US has gained a lot of goodwill in Africa through initiatives such as the program for antiretroviral supply products that are responsible for saving millions of lives. Such efforts could be threatened if Trump revives plans he outlined in his first term to cut aid budgets to developing countries.
“My concern stems from what he said he wanted to do in the first term and he wasn’t able to do because of the guardrails,” Devermont said.
Pham hinted that there could be a revaluation of health care programs, which he said have absorbed large amounts of fixed spending that would be better allocated to strategic investments.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act, which offers duty-free access to US markets, should only be extended to countries whose foreign policy positions align with Washington’s, Pham said. Some countries such as South Africa have taken positions on Israel and Iran that are at odds with Washington’s interests, he said.
But Pham dismissed the idea that Trump had ignored Africa, citing a move to double international development financing to $60 billion in his first term. “Look beyond appearances to substance,” he said.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
