Biden in Angola: What’s behind the last-ditch Africa trip?

United States President Joe Biden is visiting Angola this week on his first-ever bilateral trip to Africa as president – weeks before he leaves the post to Donald Trump.

Biden is set to arrive in the Angolan capital, Luanda, on Monday, after a brief stop in the West African nation of Cape Verde. The two-day trip to Angola, many analysts say, represents a final, desperate attempt to fulfil a promise Biden made long ago, and counter China’s expanding influence on the continent.

The anticipated visit, which was pushed back from October due to Hurricane Milton, will see Biden visit the Lobito Port, which is at the heart of US trade relations with Angola. There, he will assess an ongoing critical minerals infrastructure project that is set to see vast supplies of cobalt and copper delivered to the West.

Here’s what to know about Biden’s Africa visit and why Lobito is important:

Why has President Biden not visited Africa?

Analysts say Biden’s failure to visit any African country – except Egypt for COP27 in November 2022 – until now shows that his administration has not prioritised the continent.

Biden first promised to visit Africa in December 2022, two years into his presidency – which some note was already too late.

He made the promise at a US-Africa leaders summit in Washington, where 49 African leaders gathered. The US “is all in on Africa and all in with Africa”, Biden declared at the time. He also announced a support package of $55bn to the African Union.

US President Joe Biden participates in a group photo with the leaders of the US-Africa Leaders Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on December 15, 2022 [Brendan Smialowski/AFP]

The Biden administration has hosted several African leaders in the White House, but the promised visit never materialised – until now.

“Presidential trips to Africa are rare enough that they always matter,” Cameron Hudson, a senior Africa analyst at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“This one would matter less coming as it does at the very end of a lame-duck presidency. Ironically, [an Africa trip] probably matters more to Biden, who is searching to establish a legacy in Africa…than for Africa, which is already preparing for his successor,” Hudson added.

Africa’s significant natural resources, rapidly growing population of 1.3 billion, and sizeable voting power in the United Nations – with 54 country votes – make the continent an increasingly important strategic player.

How has Biden approached ties with Africa so far?

US influence on the continent has been waning for years, even as China and Russia have strengthened their presence in several countries.

China has since 2013 overtaken the US to become Africa’s largest trade partner. This year, the US lost a major spy base in the West African nation of Niger, and its army got kicked out of Chad. That has left it struggling to find a military foothold in the Sahel region which has become a hotspot of violence by a range of armed groups.

In 2022, the White House released an ambitious Africa strategy document that shifted from the first Trump administration’s focus on trade relations.

Rather, the document promised, the US would push for Africa to have leadership roles at international platforms, including permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council and membership of the G20. Analysts lauded the approach as “modern” and “ambitious” at the time but enthusiasm for it quickly faded as little action followed.

Several top officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have visited African countries at various times.

Meanwhile, Biden found time to travel elsewhere. He has visited the United Kingdom alone five times, apart from numerous other visits to Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

In contrast, President Xi Jinping of China and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have visited African countries at least twice as heads of state.

The Angolan and US flag hang from a building near the Quatro de Fevereiro Luanda International Airport on December 2, 2024 before the visit by US President Joe Biden to Angola [Julio Pacheco Ntela/AFP]

Why is Biden visiting now, and why Angola?

The visit to Luanda will see Biden focus on an $800m US-backed railway project in the Lobito Corridor. The passage is a strategic trade route that connects the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to Angola, which hosts the port of Lobito, located on the Atlantic Ocean.

Funded largely by the US and the European Union, the Lobito Atlantic Railway project will see an existing rail network in the Lobito Corridor upgraded. That would allow for the faster export of cobalt and copper, amongst other minerals, mined from the DRC’s Kolwezi mining town, to the West.

The DRC is one of the world’s largest producers of copper and cobalt. The minerals are key components of batteries that power electric vehicles, which the US and EU are eager to develop more of as demand for clean energy supply chains grows.

Washington has provided a $550m loan to start the project. The African Development Bank and the Africa Finance Corporation are also involved.

(Al Jazeera)

The rail line is about 1300km (800 miles) long and will likely see extensions into mineral-rich regions in Zambia. Portuguese company Trafigura is leading a three-company consortium that will operate the railway for 30 years under a concession agreement. In August, the company said it shipped the first container of minerals to the US via the Lobito Port.

Analysts say the US faces challenges in the corridor. China has eyes on the region, too, and has already locked in much of the minerals that would theoretically be sold to Western countries within its huge Belt and Road Initiative, notes researcher Wala Chabala in a paper for the Berlin-based think tank, Africa Policy Research Institute.

“Not only are the Chinese ubiquitously present on the African continent, but China is already far ahead in building supply chains for cobalt, lithium and several other essential metals and minerals,” Chabala wrote.

In September, China’s state engineering corporation signed a concession agreement to operate the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), another railway line in the corridor that links central Zambia to the port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.

What does Biden’s visit mean for Angola?

US officials say the visit is meant to highlight the close ties between Angola and the US.

At present, Luanda is also playing a lead role in mediating a spat between the DRC and Rwanda, concerning ongoing violence in eastern Congo.

Angola was, until a few years ago, a heavy borrower from China. It has also been historically close to Russia: During Angola’s 27-year civil war, the US and the former Soviet Union backed rival sides, leading to cold ties between Luanda and Washington.

However, the government of President Joao Lourenco, which has been in place since 2017, has favoured stronger ties with Washington. The two countries have deepened trade relations and by 2023, US-Angola trade totalled approximately $1.77bn. Angola is the US’s fourth-largest trade partner in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2021, and more recently, in November 2023, Biden hosted President Lourenco at the White House.

Supporters of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and other opposition groups hold banners as they gather following a march to protest against Angola’s governing party and President Joao Lourenco in Luanda, on November 23, 2024 [Julio Pacheco Ntela/ AFP]

However, analysts say Washington’s view of Lourenco’s government ignores alleged human rights violations under his watch. Lourenco is unpopular amongst many Angolans due to high living costs, corruption, and mounting crackdowns on dissent. In June, authorities opened fire on protesters angry at inflation, killing eight people in the central Huambo province. Several others were arrested in cities across the country.

Analysts say Biden’s refusal to acknowledge those concerns over alleged rights abuses is a stain on his legacy.

“Many observers believe that Biden’s visit may inadvertently embolden an unpopular president,” said Florindo Chivucute, director of Friends of Angola, a group advocating for stronger democratic values in Angola and based in Luanda and Washington, DC.

“While the US lags behind China in terms of trade and political influence in Angola, it should not compromise its core values of democracy and human rights in an attempt to catch up,” he said.

What’s next for US-Africa ties?

While President Biden has finally fulfilled his promise to visit Africa, his administration hasn’t been able to accomplish some of the other goals it set for itself.

The African Union was admitted as a permanent member of the G20 in September 2023. However, no African country is still a permanent member of the UNSC.

In September 2024, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced that her country would support two permanent UNSC seats for Africa. However, she warned that those seats would not have veto power, a position that many analysts criticised because it would set up a two-tier system – one for UNSC members with vetoes, and the second for those without that power.

A Trump presidency, meanwhile, is likely to focus only on trade relations, as it did the first time, experts say.

The incoming administration will likely want to compete with Chinese and Russian influence, and land access to critical minerals, Tibor Nagy, a top envoy to Africa under the last Trump administration, told the Reuters news agency.

There, at least, projects like the Lobito Railway could see sustained US investment. “This checks both boxes,” Nagy said, referring to the railway project.