KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
President Joe Biden traveled to Angola this week, the first time a sitting U.S. head of state has been to the African continent since 2015 and the first-ever trip by an American president to Angola. Biden is looking to build on the growing U.S.-Angola relationship and to secure U.S. access to Africa’s critical minerals, which power everyday consumer technologies and beyond. China has long dominated that market, making the U.S. reliant on its principal strategic competitor for these key resources. The U.S. and its G7 partners launched the Lobito Corridor project — spanning Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia — in 2023 to enhance its access to these minerals and spur local and regional economic development and connectivity.
USIP’s Tom Sheehy explains what Biden hoped to accomplish in Angola, how the Lobito Corridor projects factored into the trip and how Angola has balanced its relations with China, Russia and the United States.
Sheehy: The U.S.-Angola relationship has made significant progress over the last decade or so, to the point that Angola is one of the strongest U.S. partners in Africa. This is quite an impressive development considering that the U.S. armed rebels fighting against the Soviet-backed Angolan government during the Cold War. Angola is an encouraging story of a once-war torn country that is now peaceful.
Ahead of the trip, the White House noted several priority issues of focus, including economic growth, food security, global health, security cooperation and climate — all of which the U.S. supports through various programs. While Angola has made some progress on some of these fronts, more could be done to promote democracy and transparency, among other things.
The Lobito Corridor project — a major three-country infrastructure project that the U.S. is promoting in partnership with Angola, the DRC and Zambia — is the highlight of the visit. A key component of the project is connecting rail service among the three countries to the Port of Lobito on Angola’s Atlantic coastline. The project has become a central piece of U.S.-Africa policy in recent years. Among its goals are to promote local economic development and regional economic integration, while helping the U.S. to diversify its critical mineral supply chains, moving away from dependence on China for copper, cobalt and other minerals essential to the U.S. economy and defense industrial base.
The Angolan government has had growing economic ties with China for two decades now. But Angola is interested in broadening its commercial partnerships, especially with the United States. Angola’s openness to the United States as a commercial partner is a big reason why President Biden is visiting the country.
A U.S. president has never set foot in Angola, so this is a historic visit that hopefully will bring the relationship to new levels.
Sheehy: Traditionally, supporting African infrastructure has not been a U.S. priority. While the Millenium Challenge Corporation has funded road, power and other projects, Lobito is the largest, most comprehensive U.S. infrastructure engagement in Africa. It’s not just a rail project — it also involves digital connectivity and aspires to catalyze economic growth along the corridor, particularly agricultural development. It’s also distinct in that it involves three African countries. The Angolan leg is the most advanced, having been rehabbed with some operations underway. Much rail upgrading is needed in the DRC and the Zambian leg hasn’t begun construction.
The project faces significant challenges. The three countries must develop a strong partnership to overcome inevitable tensions. There will be local community concerns and even conflicts over accessing the corridor, and concerns over competition with other transportation sectors. To mitigate some of these challenges, the project’s broad benefits to local economic development should be tangible and visible; the rail isn’t intended to be just a means to transport extracted critical minerals overseas. And the project must prove to be economically viable, transiting enough cargo to justify the corridor’s rehabilitation, construction and maintenance. Critical mineral prices are volatile, subjecting mining and processing sectors to market stresses that could negatively impact the corridor.
For these reasons, the Lobito Corridor has been described as a gamble, though one worth taking to spur economic development and help diversify U.S. critical mineral supply chains.
The Lobito project will be successful if it attracts more private investment, including from the United States. This should be in critical mineral sectors, but also in energy, agriculture and telecommunications. President Biden’s trip promises to bring valuable attention to Angola and the region, showing U.S. support for the project and getting the attention of potential investors who are needed to make the most of this effort. Angola’s president, João Lourenço, agrees that Biden’s visit is crucial for demonstrating confidence in his country’s investment environment. “When you as head of state visit a country, that conveys a sign of confidence to the U.S. businesses. So, when he [Biden] comes, that also is a way of telling U.S. investors that you may come and invest in various areas of our economy,” he told the New York Times.
Sheehy: Angola has had relations with the Russia going back to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union heavily backed the Marxist Angolan government, established in 1975 after Portugal relinquished its colony. The Angolan government was heavily dependent on Soviet arms, military training and other aid in its battle with U.S.- and South African-backed rebels. After the Cold War, however, Russian engagement in Angola, and all of Africa, waned. There are still some Angolan political leaders with attachments to Moscow, but Russia’s relatively small economy has limited its influence in today’s Angola.
As Russian influenced waned, China ramped up its focus on Angola, bringing its economic clout through its state-driven infrastructure development efforts like the Belt and Road Initiative. This led to a Chinese infrastructure building spree in Angola. But while China addressed Angola’s desperate need for roads, ports and rail, it left the country with tens of billions of dollars in debt to Beijing. In addition, Angolans are concerned about the poor quality, and low environmental and labor standards of Chinese infrastructure projects. These concerns are one of the reasons that Angola turned to a Western-led consortium, not China, to develop and operate the Lobito Corridor.
Angola wants partners besides China, especially the United States. Diversifying its partners beyond China gives it options for partnering on infrastructure, helping to secure better deals. These other options include Portugal, with which Angola maintains strong economic ties.
Angola is not going to abandon its economic engagement with China, which is deep seated. But the U.S. can be confident that it offers Angola higher quality infrastructure development and other business investment than China. This type of engagement is the recipe for a stronger U.S.-Angola relationship, and a stronger U.S.-Africa relationship more broadly.