President Biden visits Angola this week and is spending billions to get better supplies of electric vehicle battery metals, but the admin may have already been beaten by China’s investments.
Africa – Legacy or lethargy? President Biden this week steps onto African soil for the first time in his presidency, in a visit to Angola seen by many as an attempt to leave a legacy. But China, analysts say, is threatening, through a decade of investment in Africa, to thwart the Biden administration’s aims to bring sweet memories in Africa of his time in the White House.
“The headline on Biden’s legacy in Africa is likely to be ‘over-promised and under-delivered,’” analyst Cameron Hudson told Fox News Digital. Hudson, director of African affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, and now senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs, added, “Biden set high expectations that he would revamp relations with the continent, when instead his approach and results have not substantially differed from any of his predecessors.”
African analyst Cobus van Staden added his thoughts: “The Biden administration’s legacy in Africa is somewhat mixed.” Van Staden is managing editor of the China-Global South Project, an organization that acts as a watchdog on Beijing’s actions and is a project contributor for the South African Institute of International Affairs.
“While it (Biden’s administration) contrasted with the first Trump term in upgrading the optics and rhetoric of U.S. engagement, it remains unclear how many of the announced projects will be completed. Overall, Africa was included in Biden’s approach of coalition-building as a response to growing Chinese power. His term also saw the positioning of critical minerals as a key U.S. strategic priority. However, so far this hasn’t translated to many gains on the African side”, he said.
Speaking at a special State Department briefing on Biden’s Angola trip, Dr. Frances Brown, special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, pushed back on criticism. Referring to the African leaders’ confab in 2022, he noted, “At that summit, we – the U.S. – pledged to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years. We are over-delivering on that thus far. Two years later, we’ve spent – we’ve invested more than 80% of that commitment.”
At another briefing, senior Biden administration officials noted that over “the past two years since the Africa Leaders Summit, the administration has had over 20 Cabinet level and senior officials travel to the continent”, the senior official added, “I think this administration is about the totality of those visits and those initiatives, and we’re proud of our record on that front.”
Brown claimed last week that “billions of dollars have been mobilized” in the Lobito Rail Corridor, a planned 800-mile railway that is central to Biden’s Angola visit – and his legacy.
