Joe Biden visits Angola to showcase Lobito Corridor

Joe Biden has embarked on his much-anticipated first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as US president but it comes amid uncertainty over future US-Africa relations as Donald Trump prepares to succeed him in January.

Biden’s visit to oil-rich Angola seeks to underscore America’s push to focus more on trade and heavy investment in infrastructure, which some analysts see as an even more direct counter to China’s influence on the continent.

“It’s a perfect marriage of convenience,” Angolan analyst Edmilson Angelo told the BBC.

Biden’s choice of Angola is significant – he is the first US president to visit the country, marking a dramatic improvement in relations between the two nations.

Angola has been firmly in the political orbit of China and Russia since its independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, but since taking power in 2017, President Joao Lourenco has steered it towards closer ties with the US.

“Lourenko’s administration has seen Angolan foreign policy move from ideological to pragmatic multipolarity, truly detached,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Biden will highlight his signature initiative in the region – a rail line stretching 1,344km (835 miles) that will connect cobalt, lithium and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the copper-belt region of Zambia. Lobito is an Angolan port city on the Atlantic Ocean.

Apart from oil, Angola is rich in minerals, including cobalt and lithium, which are essential for making batteries for electric vehicles.

Once completed, the Lobito Corridor will help transport these important minerals from the resource-rich heart of Africa to Europe and the US.

On its website, the Lobito Corridor Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) says US involvement “represents the first alternative from Washington DC to China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, which aims to build a series of trade routes linking several countries in Africa. And elsewhere, to the Asian giant.

With Biden’s visit coming at the end of his presidency, there is still no clarity on whether the Trump administration will proceed with the plan.

Dr Vines believes it could survive a Trump presidency as it aims primarily to compete against China.

However, he points out that both Western and Chinese firms will be able to use the infrastructure and “question its value to US President Trump, who is likely to largely define his regime by competing with Beijing”.

Lourenco expressed hope that the Trump administration would build on the initiative.

“Powers come and go, so what we have to do is be willing to work with the people in power,” he told The New York Times before his meeting with Biden.

The Lobito Corridor is a joint project between three African countries, the US, other G7 powers and private investors.

“We have a collective commitment to global support in G7 countries of $600bn (£470bn) by 2027 and beyond,” he said. Helaina Matza serves as Special Coordinator for the project at the US Department of State.

Lourenco defended the investment by dismissing concerns that it would mimic colonial-era exploitation of Africa’s resources.

“Today, when we export minerals, we export them in the interest of African countries, unlike during the colonial period when they were extracted without the consent of our indigenous peoples,” he told The New York Times.

But more and more African countries are considering reducing exports of raw materials to encourage local processing.

If this happens, it could derail the corridor’s projected economic impact, said Anthony Carroll, a minerals expert at the US Institute of Peace.

He is optimistic that vast copper deposits in DR Congo and Zambia will make the Lobito Corridor viable as there is “steady demand” for it globally.

Lithium and cobalt have more “cyclical” demand, he says.

The US Geological Survey estimates that DR Congo holds half of the world’s cobalt reserves.

The vast Central African country currently accounts for around 63% of the global supply of the mineral, much of which is exported in crude.

Mr. Angelou is optimistic that African countries will increasingly develop their industrial capacities.

He describes Biden’s visit and investment in the Lobito corridor as a big boost to Angola’s efforts to change its image.

“They present Angola as a safe place to invest,” Mr. Angelo says, “where the US president goes, the whole world follows.”

Angola has been rebuilding its infrastructure since the end of a nearly 30-year civil war in 2002.

The conflict was destroyed The colonial-era Benguela railway, which forms part of the corridor, was only 3% in use at the end of the conflict.

Then efforts to revive it began, with China being the first to invest in it.

Between 2006 and 2014, China invested nearly $2bn in upgrading railways through a rail oil deal.

But Lourenco regretted the deal, telling The New York Times that it was “convenient” for Angola.

“If you ask me now whether I should take out a new loan under the same conditions, I would say: ‘No’,” he said, adding that Angola will pay off the debt, however.

China’s massive infrastructure investment, through its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, has been criticized for pushing countries in Africa and Asia deeper into debt.

The US’s move to massive infrastructure investment in Africa coexists with Chinese-backed projects, representing a more multipolar approach.

China already controls 80% of copper mines in DR Congo, one of the world’s largest producers of the mineral.

With the global focus moving towards green energy, including electric vehicles, Central African mines will become more and more attractive.

America’s shift to investing in infrastructure in the region is not surprising.

Already, work has begun along the Lobito corridor, the first phase of which includes upgrading the existing railway from the port to the DR Congo border with funding from the US Development Finance Corporation.

Ms Matza said the second phase would involve 800km of new railway line starting in Angola.

The aim is to eventually connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean via Tanzania.

Apart from transporting minerals, railways could boost trade and agriculture along the route.

The Africa Development Bank is already funding $500m in projects to boost domestic and cross-border trade through the development of small businesses, cooperatives and traders along the Lobito corridor.

In 2023, US trade with Angola will be approximately $1.77bn, according to the State Department, making the oil-producer America’s fourth-largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa.

President Biden’s visit fulfills a promise he made to the continent in 2022, albeit belatedly.

Despite uncertainty about where the Trump administration will take the relationship, it will help shape Angola’s position in regional and global development for years to come.