Biden arrives in Angola for historic Africa visit

The president intends to strengthen U.S. ties with Africa and counter China's dominance in the region

President Joe Biden arrives in Angola
Biden is the first sitting US president to visit Angola
(Image credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

President Joe Biden arrived in Angola Monday for a three-day visit aimed at strengthening U.S. ties with Africa and countering China's dominance in the region. Biden is the first sitting U.S. president to visit Angola and the first to travel to sub-Saharan Africa since 2015. He promised to visit the region last year, but the trip was delayed, reinforcing "sentiment among some Africans that their continent is still low priority for Washington," The Associated Press said.

Who said what

Biden is meeting with Angolan President João Lourenco in Luanda today and speaking at the capital's National Museum of Slavery, but his visit to the country will "focus largely on the Lobito Corridor railway redevelopment," the AP said. The U.S.-funded regional rail project aims to move copper, cobalt and lithium — critical minerals for electric vehicles, clean energy and microchips — from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Western markets through the Angolan port of Lobito.

China, the "top player" in Congo, lost out to the U.S. in the Lobito Corridor project but signed an agreement in September to revive a "rival railway" to Africa's eastern coast, Reuters said. The U.S. is concerned about Beijing's "dominance of the global supply chain for minerals," The Washington Post said, but Biden's team was "reluctant to publicly frame" Washington's interest in southern Africa "as motivated solely by its larger competition with China."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What next?

Biden will visit Lobito to see the rail project and end what's likely his final foreign trip as president at a summit Wednesday with leaders from Congo, Tanzania and Zambia.

Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.