Joe Biden visits Angola to showcase Lobito Corridor

Joe Biden has begun his long-anticipated maiden visit to sub-Saharan Africa as US president but it comes amidst uncertainty over future US-Africa relations as Donald Trump prepares to succeed him in January.

Biden’s visit to oil-rich Angola seeks to underline an attempt by America to focus more on trade and heavy investment in infrastructure, in what some analysts see as the most direct counter yet 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, signalling a dramatic improvement in relations between the two nations.

Angola was firmly in the political orbit of China and Russia after independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, but since taking power in 2017, President João Lourenço has steered it towards closer relations with the US.

“Lourenço’s administration has seen Angolan foreign policy move away from ideology towards pragmatic multipolarity, becoming truly non-aligned,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa programme at Chatham House, a London-based think thank.

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

Apart from oil, Angola is also 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 across to Europe and the US.

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

Biden’s visit comes at the tail-end of his presidency, with no clarity yet on whether the Trump administration will continue with the project.

Dr Vines believes it “may survive the Trump presidency as it is primarily aimed at competing against China”.

However, he points out that both Western and Chinese firms will be able to use the infrastructure, and that “may make its value questionable to Trump, a US president who will likely define his administration in large measure by competition with Beijing”.

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

“Powers come and go, so, all we have to do is to be ready to work with those that will be in power,” he told the New York Times ahead of Biden’s visit.

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

“We have a collective commitment for global support among the G7 countries of $600bn [£470bn] and over – through 2027,” said Helaina Matza, the acting special coordinator for the project at the US Department of State.

Lourenço defended the investment, dismissing concerns that it mimics the colonial-era exploitation of Africa’s resources.

“Today, when we export the minerals, we export them in the interest of the African countries, different from what used to be in the colonial period when they were extracted without the consent of our indigenous people,” he told the New York Times.

But more and more African countries are considering reducing the export of raw materials to promote local processing.

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

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

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

The US Geological Survey estimates that DR Congo has nearly half the world’s cobalt deposits.

The vast central African country currently accounts for about 63% of the global supply of the mineral, the bulk of which is exported raw.

Mr Angelo is optimistic that African countries will incrementally grow their industrial capabilities.

He describes Biden’s visit, and the investment in the Lobito Corridor, as a huge boost for Angola’s efforts to change its image.

“He presents Angola as a safe place to invest,” Mr Angelo says, adding: “Where the US president goes, the whole world follows.”

Angola has been rebuilding its infrastructure following the end of an almost 30-year civil war in 2002.

The conflict destroyed the colonial-era Benguela railway line, which is part of the corridor, with only 3% of it in use at the end of the conflict.

Efforts to revive it then began, with China being the first to invest in it.

Between 2006 and 2014, China invested about $2bn to renovate the railway through a rail-for-oil deal.

But Lourenço has expressed regret over the deal, telling the New York Times that it was “disadvantageous” to Angola.

“If you would ask me now if I had to take a new loan under the same conditions, I would say: ‘No’,” he said, adding that Angola would, nevertheless, pay off the debt.

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

The US’ move into massive infrastructure investments in Africa would exist alongside Chinese-backed projects, representing a more multipolar approach.

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

With the global focus moving to greener energy, including electric vehicles, the mines of central Africa will become more and more attractive.

The American shift to investing in infrastructure in the region comes therefore as no surprise.

Already, work has started along the Lobito Corridor, with the first phase of it encompassing the upgrading of the existing railway from the port to DR Congo’s border, with funding from the US Development Finance Corporation.

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

The goal is to eventually connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean through Tanzania.

Beyond transporting minerals, the railway could also boost trade and agriculture across the route.

The Africa Development Bank is already funding projects to the tune of $500m 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 was approximately $1.77bn, according to the State Department, making the oil-producer America’s fourth-largest trade partner in sub-Saharan Africa.

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

It also helps shape Angola’s place in regional and global development for years to come, despite uncertainties about where the Trump administration will take the relationship.