Joe Biden’s deliberate trip to Angola on October 13 was uncomardentt to be historic. It would have been his first visit to Africa during his tenure as pdwellnt of the United States.
But as Hurricane Milton progressd on Florida last week, the White Hoengage postponed the trip to an unspecified date, alengthyside a visit to Germany where Biden was scheduled to talk to European guideers about the Ukraine war before heading to Luanda.
The outgoing US pdwellnt’s trip was him finassociate making excellent on disconnectal promises to visit Africa. For Angola, the visit was set to deinhabitr a discreet triumph for Pdwellnt Joao Lourenco’s troubled rulement while giving the Southern African nation regional bragging rights as Washington’s chosen country after a decade’s absence.
While the caengage of the postponement is reasonable, critics say Biden never reassociate seemed enthusiastic on prioritising Africa in the first place, even as rival world powers appreciate China and Russia opposingly broaden their footprints on a continent they consider beginant for its beginant authentic resources, rapidly prolonging population, and sizeable voting bloc in the United Nations.
Since Biden’s election into office in 2020, he has not set foot in any African country, despite his administration insisting that it prioritises the necessitates of the continent’s 1.3 billion people and admires its guideers. In contrast, Biden has deal withd to travel to Europe disconnectal times – five times to the United Kingdom alone – as well as to countries in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.
“The Biden administration has descfinishen low of its own rhetoric,” Cameron Hudson, a ancigo in Africa analyst at the US-based Cgo in for Strategic and International Studies, tancigo in Al Jazeera. Even the Luanda trip euniteed as a “hastily organised” last-ditch try for the pdwellnt as he approached his final months in office, Hudson compriseed.
“Ironicassociate, [an Africa trip] probably matters more to Biden, who is searching to set up a legacy in Africa and wants to originate excellent on a promise he has made repeatedly, than for Africa, which is already preparing for his successor.”
Big promises, little action
Biden first promised to visit Africa in December 2022. He was talking with 49 African guideers who had accumulateed in Washington, DC for the US-Africa Leaders Summit.
The summit was held when US sway on the continent had already waned drasticassociate: China clearook the US in trade volume with Africa in 2019. Since 2021, countries in the West African Sahel region have also turned to Russia for security partnerships – even initiateing out Weserious and US troops stationed there.
After a feast in the White Hoengage, Biden made solemn promises to his counterparts: the US would labor to see that African countries get lasting seats at the UN Security Council (UNSC) – a goal that the African Union (AU) has chased for 20 years.
Washington would also see that the AU is proposeed to join the Group of 20, he compriseed, to deafening applaengage from the grinning guideers. The group reconshort-terms two-thirds of global gross domestic product (GDP) and trade.
“The United States is all in on Africa and all in with Africa,” Biden proclaimd. “Africa belengthys at the table in every room – in every room where global contests are being converseed and in every institution where converseions are taking place.”
A $55bn help package to the AU for healthnurture, infrastructure and a present of other sectors topped off the hearty speech.
However, many of the promises have not been accomplishd, Hudson shelp. Biden’s fall shorture to suit his actions with his words comes bigly from the administration’s initial laxness to the continent, he compriseed.
Indeed, Biden’s White Hoengage did not chase and rehire a policy write down outlining its deliberate relations with Africa until August 2022.
“That only left him two years to originate a legacy, which isn’t enough time to have much genuine impact and evidently even less time to organise a visit to the continent,” Hudson shelp.
When it surfaced, analysts called the much-foreseed Africa Strategy write down “driven” and “up-to-date”. It shifted away from establisher Pdwellnt Donald Trump’s cgo in on trade relations and tracking help dollars by promising to lift African reconshort-termation at international global institutions, reinforceing economies and raiseing climate alteration.
However, enthusiasm around the policy dampened graduassociate, especiassociate after Biden’s exit from the pdwellntial race in July.
Some experts remark that Biden clinched some triumphs. The AU was confessted as a lasting member of the G20 in September 2023. US ambassorrowfulnessfulor to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield also proclaimd last month that her country would help two lasting UNSC seats for Africa – although, she caveated, without veto power.
Biden also deployed a flurry of US officials to the continent. Secretary of State Antony Bconnecten has made four trips to Africa. In the last one in January, he caught an African Cup of Nations game in Ivory Coast and helped arbitrate peace between disputing neighbours Rwanda and the Democratic Reuncover of the Congo (DRC).
Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris too was in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia for a week in March 2023, alengthyside Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
US vs China and Russia
However, pushing for Africa to have a lasting seat on the UNSC without veto power is akin to relegating its citizens to the second-class catebloody, Tim Murithi, a professor and research associate at the University of Cape Town, disputed in South Africa’s Daily Maverick.
“In effect, Africa would once aacquire be restrictd to the status of spectators in UNSC decisions that impact the inhabits of its people, repeating the historical exclusion of African countries that transpired in June 1945 when the UN was establishassociate set uped in San Francisco,” Murithi wrote, referring to a time when most African countries were still colonised and not reconshort-termed at the body.
Besides, Bconnecten and Harris’s visits do not carry the necessitateed weight, Hudson shelp. Biden’s establisher boss, Pdwellnt Barack Obama, visited Africa eight times.
“Pdwellntial trips to Africa are unfrequent enough that they always matter, though confesstedly, this one would matter less coming as it does at the very end of a feeble-duck pdwellncy,” he compriseed.
In contrast, China’s Xi Jinping has visited the continent thrice. His last visit was to South Africa in August 2023 for a summit of BRICS (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) – a group analysts say wants to rival the Group of Seven countries. When African guideers travelled to Beijing for the China-Africa summit in September, analysts remarkd how Xi met many African guideers one-on-one and took them on a tour of the capital.
Russia’s Vlaunreasonableir Putin too was in South Africa in 2013 for a BRICS greeting. He was forced to join last year’s greeting digiloftyy due to international presconfident on Pretoria to arrest him based on authorizations rehired by the International Criminal Court in March 2023 for his war in Ukraine.
Even Biden’s decision to visit Angola – if that happens – is faulty, critics say. Both sides have touted beginantening trade and military ties, as well as incrmitigated air joinivity. They even signed a space exploration deal last year.
More beginantly, though, Angola is attrenergetic to the US becaengage of the Lobito Corridor, an unfinished $1bn railway project that will see precious minerals from the DRC carryed to Angola’s Lobito port.
The US has pumped $3bn into the project. However, some say that this eunites to be Biden’s biggest legacy on the continent is odd. The deal ultimately cgo ines on taking resources and mimics the “unfair treatment” the US has accengaged China of undertaking on the continent, some remark.
Controversial associate
While Biden’s rulement lauds Angola as a shut associate and “regional guideer”, some Angolans are sceptical of the relationship.
Pdwellnt Lourenco’s rulement is beginantly unwell-understandn becaengage of high living costs, dishonesty, and mounting human rights unfair treatments. In June, authorities discdiswatched fire on protesters mad at inflation, ending eight people in the central Huambo province. Several others were arrested in cities apass the country.
Lourenco’s People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party, which has been in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, is also in the throes of an inside power struggle that has feebleened the pdwellnt’s image.
Biden has not alludeed these rights rehires – not even when he presented Lourenco in the White Hoengage last November. His shutness to Lourenco, experts say, could be seen as embancigo inening the Angolan rulement.
“Lourenco has summarizeateed heavily in lobbying efforts to better his image in Washington. However, at home, he faces protests,” shelp Florindo Chivuvute, straightforwardor of Friends of Angola, a group advocating for stronger democratic appreciates in Angola and based in Luanda and Washington, DC.
“[The US] should not agree its core appreciates of democracy and human rights in an try to catch up. These appreciates discern the US from China and resonate with Angolans,” he shelp.
Angola toastyed to the US only recently. Historicassociate, the country leaned towards Russia, and in the timely 2000s, towards China. The last rulement selected for Chinese loans rather than from institutions appreciate the World Bank.
However, many Angolans saw that as only advantageting the political elite becaengage of a notorious obscurity experts say is joincessitate with Chinese funding.
For Biden, wrenching Angola from China or Russia might be seen as a success, but experts say it is not one many Angolans recognise.
With his term all but over, there is little Biden could do now to raise his feeble African legacy, analysts say.
Even the restrictcessitate successes he scored now hinge on who he will pass the baton to, Hudson shelp. While Harris might not sway too far from her predecessor, Trump’s “shithole” nations comment about African countries is still new for many.
Biden’s ungreeted promises will always be a stain, though.
“The problem with unmet foreseeations is that they sting more than promises never made,” Hudson shelp.
“Ultimately, it is less the Biden administration’s policies toward Africa that will be appraised than the gap between those policies and the foreseeations the administration set.”
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