by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken concluded a four-country tour of Africa on Thursday with a visit to Angola, an oil-rich former Cold War battleground that has become the scene of a fight for economic influence. of the 21st century.
During his visit to the coastal capital Luanda, Blinken highlighted major US investments in Angola, including more than $900 million for solar energy projects and $250 million to improve a rail corridor that transports critical minerals including cobalt and copper. , from central Africa. to the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola.
Those investments in solar energy help advance President Biden’s climate agenda, while improvements in transportation further his goal of diversifying American supply chains, in part to reduce American dependence on Chinese control of ingredients vital to an economy. modern.
Just over 20 years after the end of Angola’s civil war, which left perhaps as many as a million dead, the country has rebuilt, modernized and developed friendly relations with Washington, which once bankrolled rebels against a government backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba. .
In a press conference alongside Téte António, Angola’s foreign minister, Blinken proclaimed that relations between the United States and Angola were at the “strongest” point in their history.
No mention was made of Angola’s economic ties with China, which has loaned Angola almost $43 billion.
Those financial ties between Beijing and Luanda are one of several relationships that have alarmed U.S. military officials, who warn that China is seeking to establish a naval base with access to the Atlantic Ocean.
In March 2022, the top US commander for Africa, Stephen J. Townsend, He said that what worried him most that Equatorial Guinea would grant China that base, but that Beijing had made progress toward that goal in other African nations. Some analysts place Angola on that list.
U.S. officials have been quietly pressuring West African nations to deny China a military presence in the Atlantic, said Cameron Hudson, who served as director of African affairs at the National Security Council during the Bush administration. He noted that Blinken’s four stops this week, which also included Cape Verde, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, have Atlantic coastlines.
Chinese bases were not a specific topic of Blinken’s discussions this week, but the generally closer ties with Africa that the Biden administration has been developing, including through new investments in Angola, make it easier for other officials to make arguments against the worrying Chinese. military influence.
Instead of talking openly about China, there was much emphasis during Blinken’s trip on what officials called an effort to treat African nations as partners and not pieces on a global chess board, reflecting a view among Biden officials that Africans resent being treated like pawns. in a kind of new Cold War with Beijing, or with Russia, which has recently expanded its interests in Africa through the mercenary group Wagner.
But Africans themselves raised the question of geopolitical competition more than once during Blinken’s visit. In Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast, a local television reporter told Blinken: “Africa appears to have become a battleground for influence between major powers in recent years. At what point do we think about the future of Africans?”
“It’s not our place to say they have to choose,” Blinken responded. “On the contrary, for us the question is to present a good election. And then the people will decide.”
Without mentioning China by name, Blinken noted that “some countries” could lend money to African nations that creates unsustainable debt and that these other countries could import workers instead of hiring locals. American investments, by contrast, can “move everyone forward,” she said.
In Angola, Biden administration officials seemed especially proud of U.S. support for the Lobito Corridor rail project, which they see as a model for a planned wave of U.S. investment on the continent. The corridor will contribute to Biden’s agenda of “de-risking” US dependence on critical minerals controlled by China. The Democratic Republic of the Congo provides more than half of the world’s supply of cobalt, which is used to make lithium-ion batteries.; about three-quarters of that country’s supply is mined for China.
U.S. officials say the rail corridor, also funded by the European Union and African entities, will spur long-term African economic growth by attracting related investments. And they hope it will be profitable, unlike some major Chinese infrastructure investments generated by Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative over the past decade.
They say the project will also create jobs in the country, furthering Biden’s goal of “a foreign policy for the middle class.” Work on the more than 800 miles The corridor’s 186 bridges will use American steel and create 600 direct jobs, according to a fact sheet from Acrow, a U.S. bridge construction company involved in the project.
Speaking in Luanda, a port city where oil tankers enter and leave the port, Blinken said the rail project has “genuinely transformative potential” for Angola and the region.
Another question that came up more than once during the trip was whether Biden would keep his promise to visit Africa in 2022.
Asked Thursday if the president could still visit, Blinken said his boss would “welcome the opportunity” to visit. “Of course, this year we have elections in the United States, so there are challenges in terms of calendars,” he added.
