As United States President Joe Biden began his long-awaited visit to Angola on Monday and met President João Lourenço yesterday as part of his three-day state visit which will largely focus on the US$5 billion on the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor redevelopment project.
The project – which has huge economic, technological and geopolitical implications – spans Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia.
The Corridor runs from the port of Lobito, on the Atlantic Ocean, to the town of Luau on Angola’s north-eastern border with the DRC and a further 400 kilometres into the DRC mining town of Kolwezi.
A branch line to Zambia is also envisaged, making it 1 300 kilometres.
The project is intended to transport resources including copper and cobalt, critical for a new generation of batteries that will power the energy transition.
It aims to advance the United States presence in a mineral-rich region which will play a major role on producing batteries for electric vehicles, electronic devices and clean energy technologies going into the future.
In a statement, the White House said: “President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today (yesterday) with President João Lourenço, highlighting the transformation of the US-Angolan relationship and reaffirming our joint commitment to continue working together to address global challenges.
“The two leaders discussed significant trade and investment opportunities that keep our companies competitive and defend the interests of workers, addressed the shared responsibility to protect and strengthen democracy in Angola and around the world, and celebrated the continued growth of the US-Angola defense relationship. “
President Biden underscored the significance of the more than US$3 billion in US commitments to infrastructure projects in Angola in support of the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, a multinational initiative to help accelerate inclusive economic growth and connect markets along the Corridor to the world, all while creating quality jobs and improving lives and livelihoods both along the Corridor and in the United States.
He also expressed appreciation for Angola’s role in promoting peace and security in sub-Saharan Africa, including its efforts to mediate the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).”
The project is also a counter to China’s growing influence on a natural resources-endowed continent of over 1.4 billion people, the same population as the Asian economic giant which is the second largest economy in the world after the US. Biden’s trip comes weeks before Republican Donald Trump takes office on 20 January, finally delivering on Biden’s pledge to visit sub-Saharan Africa.
The big question is whether Trump will support the project.
On his way to Luanda, Biden stopped over in the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde for a brief, closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva.
Essentially, the Lobito Corridor is a US$5 billion investment across multiple sectors intended to revitalise and extend the 1 300-kilometre Benguela railway line.
It will connect the 120-year-old Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean coast to the DRC, and in its second phase, to Zambia. Announced in September 2023, much of the corridor’s financing comes from the Partnership for Global Infrastructure (PGI) and Investment.
The PGI is a Biden-led 2022 initiative from the Group of Seven wealthiest economies which evolved from his Build Back Better World plan launched in 2021 as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Biden’s trip to Angola is his first to Africa as president, and the first visit to Angola by an American leader since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.
It comes as the ruling MPLA prepares to celebrate 50 years in power, and Angola gets ready to host the US–Africa Business Summit in mid-2025. The trip is also historically significant as it signals a break with the past and new relations. It is a critical dramatic change.
During the Cold War, Angola – where major regional battles were fought – was a one-party Marxist-Leninist state, allied to the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The country fought a long civil war with the late Jonas Savimbi-led Unita, a rebel movement that was supported by apartheid South Africa and the US.
Unita, like Renamo in Mozambique was supported by apartheid South Africa and the US, becoming the second largest recipient of American covert aid after the Afghan Mujahadin until 1992, toxifying relations between Washington and Luanda.
Unita started declining after the killing of Savimbi in February 2002.
The war ended in 2003. However, prior to that tide had begun to turn in May 1993, when President Bill Clinton formally recognised the government elected in Angola’s first ever multiparty elections.
Once the Cold War faded into the dark past after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, American companies pushed into oil-rich Angola.
US oil companies, Chevron and Exxon have prospered in the country, which later became an important source of US oil imports.
That continued until 2006, when this trade plateaued and then sharply declined following the US shale boom. After 2003, the US shifted attention to Afghanistan amid the war on terror.
Bilateral relations between Washington DC and Luanda subsequently cooled. Angola sought diplomatic and economic relations with China – resulting in US$45 billion of infrastructure investment over the last 20 years. Angola still owes Chinese lenders US$17 billion, about 40% of its total debt.
The US is now coming with the Lobito Corridor railway project. Once operational, it will boost access to critical minerals for the US and its partners, including cobalt and copper, that are essential in electric vehicle manufacturing.
This is likely to provoke fierce competition from China, which is locked in a new scramble for Africa with the US, Russia, the European Union, Britain, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Italy, France and Turkey, among many other countries around the world.
Although Russia supported Angolan independence, it has no economic or diplomatic foothold in the central African nation.
China is the real US competition in Africa and Angola in particular. According to a US congressional report, 80% of the DRC’s copper mines are Chinese owned.
China is responsible for mining 85% of the DRC’s rare earth minerals, including 76% of its cobalt.
However, Lourenço’s administration has seen Angolan foreign policy shift away from ideological rigidity to a nuanced and pragmatic multipolarity, becoming truly non-aligned. Luanda has sought to reduce its closeness and dependency to Beijing and Moscow, voting in favour of the 2022 UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian annexation referendums in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Angola has now come out to deepen relations with the US – but also the UAE, Turkey and France.
In early October the country joined Le Francophonie as an official observer, and Lourenço is due to visit Paris in early 2025, following the visit of Emmanuel Macron to Angola in 2023. Angola has also indicated that it would also like to join the Commonwealth, although it is not a former British colony like a few members of the grouping.
Angola has also been critical is trying to bring an end of conflict and stability in neighbouring DRC. Lourenço is also seeking election to chairperson of the African Union in 2025 – which will help to further the DRC and the Great Lakes peace-seeking initiatives.
Biden’s visit to Angola highlights a major geopolitical issue and the new scramble for Africa.
