President Joe Biden left for Angola on Sunday for a trip that will allow him to fulfill his promise to visit Africa during his presidency and focus on a major U.S.-backed rail project that aims to divert important minerals from China.
When US President Joe Biden visits Angola on Wednesday, he will highlight his infrastructure project to secure crucial supply chains on the African continent. The project, called the Lobito Corridor, is the centerpiece of his administration's strategy to counter China's influence on global development.
The Lobito Corridor is a $5 billion multi-sector investment that aims to revitalize and expand the 1,300-kilometer Benguela railway line. It will connect the 120-year-old Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, in its second phase, to Zambia.
Announced in September 2023, much of the corridor's funding comes from the Alliance for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a Biden-led 2022 initiative of the Group of Seven richest economies that evolved from its Build Back Better World plan launched in 2021 as a counterpart to China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Once operational, it will increase access to critical minerals for the United States and its partners, including cobalt and copper, which are essential for the manufacture of electric vehicles. According to a US Congressional report, 80% of the copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are Chinese-owned. China is responsible for extracting 85% of the DRC's rare earth minerals, including 76% of its cobalt.
The Lobito Corridor is expected to reduce transportation costs, open access to arable agricultural land and drive climate-resilient economic growth, Helaina Matza, acting special coordinator for PGI at the U.S. State Department, said Tuesday in a briefing for journalists.
PGI investments will “amplify the impact of that infrastructure” with projects such as solar energy development, local power grids and desalination efforts, he said.
The project is promoted by Angolan president Joao Lourenco. Angola owes around $17 billion to China, more than a third of its total debt. The debt is mainly in the form of infrastructure development loans, backed by oil, which financed the country's economic recovery after three decades of civil war that ended in 2002.
PGI to counter the BRI
Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2013, China has become the largest funder of global development financing. In Africa, Beijing has signed loan commitments with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions.
From 2013 to 2021, China provided $679 billion for infrastructure projects around the world, according to a US government analysis, while the United States provided $76 billion.
The United States, together with its G7 partners, announced in 2022 that the PGI aims to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 as an alternative to infrastructure financing models that “are often opaque, do not respect environmental and social standards, exploit workers and leave recipient countries worse off.
That's a lot of funding to recoup in a few years, and Lobito is the “first and most developed” project in that effort, said Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“That's the A+ project, but I don't see many other projects,” Schneidman told VOA.
The other PGI project, the Luzon Corridor, was launched in April to support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines.
At Lobito, the United States works primarily with European partners. In Luzon, the United States is partnering with Japan to secure critical industries such as semiconductors.
The White House rejected the idea that Biden has narrowed his global infrastructure ambitions to the two corridors.
“We've mobilized over $60 billion, just the United States, and that's part of the larger G7,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA during a briefing last month.
“And that hasn't just been for two runners,” he said. “That has been for investments in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.”
US-Africa Strategy
In August 2022, the Biden administration released a strategy for Africa that “reframes the importance of the region to U.S. national security interests,” the strategy says.
Later that year, Biden hosted the US-Africa Leaders Summit, where he pledged that the US would invest $55 billion in Africa over three years.
“So far we are delivering on that,” Frances Brown, senior director of African affairs at the National Security Council, said in a briefing Tuesday. “We have invested more than 80% of that commitment.”
But much of that $55 billion was allocated under existing programs and does not generate the kind of megaproject that is “visible to the average African who says the United States financed it the way the Chinese do,” Mvemba Phezo said. Dizolele, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
That's why the Lobito Corridor stands out, Dizolele told VOA. It is “the only tangible project that people can look at and say, 'If this gets implemented, then maybe it will move things forward.'”
On a continent where the presence of Chinese finance, businesses and immigrants is so prevalent that many African countries teach Mandarin in schools and incorporate Chinese characters into public signage, it's a start.
Going forward, activists hope the United States will not neglect the social and environmental concerns that have besieged Chinese-funded projects.
“We have to make sure we can listen to all the stakeholders involved in the process,” said Sergio Calundungo, founder of the Angola Social Observatory.
So far, civil society groups have not been invited to the table, but they are ready to ensure that local communities can “share as much prosperity as possible through this important infrastructure,” he told VOA.
Will it continue?
President-elect Donald Trump will take office in January. While some worry that the United States' commitment to Africa could falter under its “America First” doctrine, analysts point to initiatives taken during his first administration.
In 2018, the Trump administration launched Prosper Africa, an initiative that brings together US government services to help investors do business on the continent. In 2019, it launched the Blue Dot Network, an international certification mechanism to ensure that infrastructure projects meet environmental and social standards.
They were aware that infrastructure investments were necessary “to foster economic growth, to foster stability, but also for U.S. interests globally in competing with China,” said Joseph Lemoine, senior director of the Center for Freedom and Security. Atlantic Council Prosperity. “I am hopeful that they will continue those efforts,” he told VOA.
Trump also launched the US International Development Finance Corporation in 2020. The DFC is an agency that functions as the US development bank, with a lending capacity of $60 billion.
The DFC's first executive director, Adam Boehler, a college roommate of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke openly about tying development aid to foreign policy goals. In a 2020 interview, he admitted to pledging $2 billion to Indonesia if the country agreed to join the Trump administration's Abraham Accords and recognize Israel.
“If you listen to all the Trump people, they want a foreign policy that is transactional,” Schneidman said at Brookings.
Trump has promised to adopt a confrontational attitude towards China. Analysts say aligning infrastructure financing needs with Trump's foreign policy goals may be an element of the US-China rivalry that developing countries can exploit.