Experts react: What Biden’s trip to Angola says about US Africa policy, China, and more

It’s a last minute trip that’s a long time coming. On December 2, US President Joe Biden will travel to Angola for what is likely the final foreign trip of his presidency. It’s also his first to Sub-Saharan Africa, and it fulfills a promise Biden made during the US-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022 to travel to the continent. Yet the trip comes in the twilight of his term, which raises questions about the urgency and scope of US attention to the region, as well as about how the incoming administration should build on Biden’s outreach. Below, Atlantic Council experts share their insights on what Biden’s trip signals about where US diplomacy in Africa is headed.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Benjamin Mossberg: Biden’s trip shows the success of Angola’s reforms

Joseph Lemoine: The Lobito Corridor reveals how the US focus is shifting from aid to investment

Alexandria J. Maloney: Trump should anticipate the need for US engagement in Africa

William Tobin: The Lobito Corridor shows that the United States can deliver on the right kinds of investment

Alexander Tripp: The US can outcompete China in Africa—it just needs to do so more frequently

Biden’s trip shows the success of Angola’s reforms

With his first trip to Africa, just twenty-nine days before the end of his term, Biden is highlighting the positive news story that is Angola. Historical narratives of Angola, including a difficult period of Portuguese colonialism, a decades-long civil war, and nearly forty years of authoritarian dictatorship under José Eduardo dos Santos, trend toward the negative. Following the 2017 election of João Lourenço as president, Angola has worked to implement an economic reform program to increase macroeconomic stability, strengthen public sector governance, and attract greater levels of foreign direct investment. The visit of a US president to Angola shows that the narrative today is different and that Angola is focused on the future.

I joined Brian Nelson, the US Treasury Department’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, on his first trip to Angola in March 2022. While there, I saw the impact of these reforms firsthand. At home, Angola made strides to implement reforms to combat corruption, money laundering, and terrorist financing. Abroad, Angola worked with its neighbors and international partners to provide mutual assistance and improve coordination.

These credible efforts show the private sector that Angola is open for business. Without these reforms, projects that Biden is set to visit, such as those in the Lobito Corridor or in the telecommunications sector, would not be possible. These positive signals should continue. Risk-rating agencies and financial institutions should look to Angola to further integrate the country into the global financial system. US executive branch agencies should continue to work with their Angolan counterparts to strengthen the country’s capacity to fight corruption and money laundering while encouraging more US firms to seriously consider investing in Africa’s seventh-largest country. Angola’s leaders are writing a new narrative, and the visit of a sitting US president shows that the United States is serious about the future.

—Benjamin Mossberg is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. Previously, he led US Treasury Department efforts to combat corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing, and financial crimes on the African continent.

The Lobito Corridor reveals how the US focus is shifting from aid to investment

Collaborating with African nations is vital for US economic and national security interests and should be balanced with promoting peace, stability, and a brighter economic future on the continent. Demand for critical minerals such as copper, cobalt, and lithium is surging, driven by their essential role in powering electronics and advancing green energy technologies. Africa, with its abundant reserves, is increasingly becoming a focal point for US efforts to secure these resources. 

Biden’s upcoming two-day trip to Luanda, Angola—his first official visit to Sub-Saharan Africa—marks a significant moment in his presidency. It is the result of intensifying US-China competition on the continent, as Beijing currently dominates many African mining sectors. His meeting with Lourenço is aimed at reaffirming bilateral ties and advancing the Lobito Corridor project. Launched in 2023 as a partnership between the United States, European Union (EU), Angola, and other African entities, the corridor aims to connect Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Angolan port of Lobito via rail. With more than three billion dollars already mobilized, the project is envisioned as the first step toward a new transcontinental railway linking the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The Lobito Corridor is a flagship initiative under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), the rebrand of Biden’s “Build Back Better World” initiative. It was adopted by the Group of Seven (G7) in 2022 in a bid to create infrastructure investment partnerships between G7 countries and developing nations. The PGII serves as an opportunity to strengthen US-Africa relations by shifting the focus from aid to investment, spurring trade, commerce, and private financing with the aim of generating economic growth in all participating countries. The effort also serves as a counter to China’s own infrastructure projects in the region—Chinese companies have invested more than twelve billion dollars in Angola over the past decade to construct canals, railways, and other infrastructure as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, sustaining investment in the Lobito Corridor is imperative. This initiative strengthens US-Africa trade, promotes local economic development, and serves as a strategic tool to counter China’s influence. It also aligns with the Trump-era Blue Dot Network’s commitment to high-quality global infrastructure standards, delivering mutually beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders involved.

—Joseph Lemoine is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. Previously, he was a private sector specialist at the World Bank.

Trump should anticipate the need for US engagement in Africa

A productive US foreign policy toward Africa under the Trump administration would focus on relationships and investments that align with US strategic and commercial interests. Biden’s trip emphasizes Angola’s growing geopolitical importance as a regional power and key partner in the diversification of the global supply chain, particularly for critical minerals vital to today’s technologies. Angola has been a prime strategic partner to the United States in the region, through infrastructure initiatives such as the multibillion-dollar, EU-supported Lobito Corridor project. Given Trump’s “America first” stance on lessening multilateral engagement, there probably will be a shift toward more bilateral programs, such as through Prosper Africa and the Export-Import Bank of the United States. 

The Trump administration should anticipate the need for US engagement in Africa in response to China’s continued influence on the continent. With the expansion of the BRICS grouping, nations in the Global South are furthering economic ties despite rivaling interests. This dynamic can be expected to deepen economic relations among BRICS nations across Africa while increasing competition with US markets. US policy toward humanitarian aid should be expected to shift toward a more “self-reliant” model for African nations and an overall reduction of US financial commitments to foreign aid. Under the new Trump administration, counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa will likely emphasize combating extremism through military and diplomatic channels. 

If the Trump administration is serious about security, trade, and advancing long-term US economic interests, it will consider major US strategic involvement and investments with African nations.

—Alexandria J. Maloney is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

The Lobito Corridor shows that the United States can deliver on the right kinds of investment

The Biden administration has championed the notion that the United States must prioritize investment, not aid, and put a focus on commercial diplomacy with African nations. In this respect, Biden’s visit to Angola does more than deliver, belatedly, on the pledge he made to visit the continent during the 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit. In addition, the visit offers the president the opportunity to showcase that the United States is capable of delivering on the kind of relationship that leaders on the continent desire: one that delivers investment of the nature that can close the infrastructure gap, estimated to be roughly $100 billion by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. 

This was recognized in the White House’s US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, released in 2022, which articulated the aim to “advance shared prosperity, leverage the best of America’s private sector, and promote equitable growth.” In Angola, Biden will showcase the United States’ ability to partake in this model, through the Lobito Corridor, a public-private railway project linking the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito. 

The United States has supported this effort with a $553 million loan to the Lobito Atlantic Railway and a $250 million loan to the Africa Finance Corporation. These investments, along with contributions from partners such as the EU and the African Development Bank—as well as private sector concessionaires such as Trafigura, Mota-Engil, and Ventricles— have leveraged more than four billion dollars in financing.

Still, the United States must do more to prove it can be the economic partner of choice for Africa’s capital-starved governments and enterprises. The United States has yet to devise a strategy that can enable the US private sector to compete on the same level of Chinese firms on the continent. Since 2013, when the Belt and Road Initiative was launched, China has outpaced the United States in new foreign direct investment to Africa. The United States has long strides to walk in improving its economic ties with the continent. The Lobito Corridor, featuring Angola’s Port of Lobito, offers the hope that at least it can be done. 

—William Tobin is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, where he focuses on international energy and climate policy.

The US can outcompete China in Africa—it just needs to do so more frequently

As can be clearly seen from Biden’s laggard trip to Africa, the continent is not at the forefront of US foreign policy concerns. This trip was already overdue when it was postponed in October. Now, post-election, there is a risk that it will symbolize little more than keeping a promise made roughly twenty-four months ago.

However, on a strategic level, the Lobito Corridor represents a win for the Biden administration and the United States. Angola has historically not been aligned with the United States, with Cold War legacies front and center. As the Washington Post put it in January, Angola “long turned to China for infrastructure and to Russia for tanks and missiles.” So, the fact that it is now partnering with the United States, over China and Russia, is significant. And it is no doubt helped along by the Biden administration’s strategy of not approaching relations with African nations under the guise of great-power competition.

It cannot be overstated that this represents a US success. China has long dominated these types of deals on the continent, and economic power can transfer into hard power. As was recently demonstrated in Peru, with the opening of the deep-water megaport of Chancay, US absenteeism opens the door for Chinese influence. These Chinese ports, as well as bringing in economic opportunity, also bring in potential strategic threats. Today’s port could be tomorrow’s naval base.

As such, the Lobito Corridor is more than just a railway line across the continent connecting the globe with some of the most valuable minerals in a twenty-first-century economy. It is also leading to what will become a major global trading port. 

Washington should recognize that Beijing’s interest in the continent far outmatches its own. China’s first overseas military base was built in Djibouti, in East Africa, and rumors persist that it is looking for an Atlantic base in the west as well. 

The Lobito Corridor seems to have kept China’s “String of Pearls” at bay for now, but it is only one project on a continent that covers roughly 20 percent of the Earth’s landmass and whose population will be 25 percent of the world’s total by 2050. The Lobito Corridor is so far a success, but it will need to be the first of many. Notably, the United States has been keen to emphasize that the Lobito Corridor will bring with it plenty of local economic opportunity. If anything, the Lobito Corridor shows that the United States can outcompete China—it just needs to do so more frequently. Add in the withdrawal of EU and US troops in the Sahel and their replacement by Russian forces, and the Lobito Corridor is a much-needed win for US presence on the continent. 

—Alexander Tripp is the assistant director for the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Further reading

Related Experts:
Benjamin Mossberg,
Joseph Lemoine,
Alexandria J. Maloney,
William Tobin, and
Alexander Tripp

Image: President Joe Biden gives remarks at a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington DC. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)