President Joe Biden is traveling to Angola on Dec. 1, underscoring the U.S. commitment to strengthening ties with the African country amid increasing geopolitical competition with communist China.
According to the White House, the outgoing president’s trip aims to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the continent and lay the foundation for a new U.S. approach to Africa that will endure beyond Biden’s presidency.
The trip was originally scheduled for Oct. 13 but was postponed because of Hurricane Milton.
A senior administration official highlighted that U.S. strategy toward Africa has changed under Biden. The president has put a greater emphasis on investment in the continent rather than relying on traditional development aid, grants, and charity, the official told reporters during a call on Nov. 29.
This is why Biden’s visit is significant and why Angola was chosen, he said.
While there, Biden is expected to highlight his key initiative known as the Lobito Corridor project, which the administration has stated is critical for U.S. economic and national security. The rail line investment project, which began last year, will allow the United States to access critical mineral reserves in Africa and expand Africa’s economic opportunities.
The eventual 1,000-mile railway would span three countries, linking Angola’s port city of Lobito to the mineral-rich areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia’s Copperbelt. It’s considered a major effort by Washington to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Africa.
The senior administration official said that the U.S. investments provide an alternative to Chinese investments, which are often associated with “low standards, child labor, and corruption.”
The infrastructure investment could reduce the time it takes to transport critical minerals to about 45 hours from 45 days, he noted.
Biden will be in Angola’s capital, Luanda, from Dec. 2 to Dec. 4. His trip is the first visit to Africa by a U.S. president in nearly a decade. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama made multiple trips to the continent during their presidencies, while President Donald Trump did not travel there during his first term.
Biden’s trip will also be the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited Angola.
Officials in the Biden administration have said that many of its initiatives will continue under the incoming administration.
“U.S.–Africa policy has actually benefited from really strong bipartisan support over the course of multiple administrations. And I think that’s a pretty remarkable tradition,” another senior administration official said during the call.
Biden is expected to deliver a speech in Luanda highlighting his efforts to close Africa’s infrastructure gap, expand economic opportunities, and promote technological and scientific cooperation with the continent.
Biden will also hold a bilateral meeting with President Joao Lourenco of Angola during his visit.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Lourenco said that, to date, only U.S. oil and gas companies have invested in Angola, an oil-rich country. However, he said he hopes that Biden’s upcoming visit will help diversify U.S. investments into other sectors.
He said the Angolan government is not concerned that the relationship between the two countries will be affected by the incoming Trump administration.
Lourenco attended the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in 2022 hosted by Biden in Washington. He later visited Biden at the White House in December 2023.
Africa’s Mineral Wealth
According to the White House, Biden’s trip to Angola has a regional focus that extends well beyond the country’s borders.Africa, with its vast natural resources and a population of 1.5 billion people, is poised to emerge as a major economic force in the world in the coming decades. The world’s growing dependence on critical and rare earth minerals makes Africa a significant hub in the global supply chain.
Sub-Saharan Africa holds about 30 percent of the world’s critical mineral reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The DRC alone holds more than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt—an essential mineral used in batteries that power smartphones, computers, and electric vehicles. With untapped mineral deposits worth more than $24 trillion, the conflict-wracked DRC is also considered the richest in the world in terms of natural resources.
Other countries in the region with significant critical mineral reserves include South Africa, Guinea, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Mozambique, and Tanzania.
Many of these minerals—such as copper, cobalt, manganese, and lithium—are the lifeblood of everyday electronics. Beyond consumer goods, they play a critical role in high-precision weapons and other defense technologies, making them vital for national security. They are also key to accelerating the transition to electric vehicles and alternative energy solutions, aligning with Biden’s ambitious climate agenda.
In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made big investments in the continent’s mining and mineral extraction industries, especially in the DRC, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia.
China owns most of DRC’s large industrial cobalt mines, and Chinese corporations own about 80 percent of the DRC’s cobalt output, which is then refined in China and sold to battery manufacturers around the world.
China dominates the critical mineral market by processing and refining raw materials sourced from other countries such as the DRC. It largely imports raw minerals and processes them into usable products, which grants the Chinese regime significant control over the supply chain.
“It’s a competition over the future of the world order,” Michael Walsh, senior fellow in the Africa program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told The Epoch Times.
However, he noted that it is not only the United States and China that are competing for the continent; India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are all “getting into the game.”
Washington also faces competition from Russia. In recent years, Moscow has deployed thousands of troops from its Africa Corps, formerly the Wagner Group, to several African countries, including Mali, Libya, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, and Niger. While increasing its military footprint, Russia also gained access to strategically important access to natural resources in these countries.
The Biden administration’s effort to counter the CCP’s influence in Africa is important in the fight for access to the continent’s strategic minerals, according to experts, who say that although the United States still has a long way to go, recent initiatives are helping close the gap.
“There’s no doubt that the railway to Lobito will eventually take minerals and other natural resources out of Chinese hands,” Candice Moore, a specialist in U.S.–Africa relations at Wits University in Johannesburg told The Epoch Times early this year.
“It’ll take them to Africa’s west coast and from there to Western markets instead of to East African ports from where they’ve traditionally been shipped East.”
Biden has said the Lobito Corridor project is “far from just laying tracks.”
The infrastructure project is funded by the U.S. government, the African Development Bank, and a consortium led by commodity trader Trafigura.
Through the BRI, China has financed the construction of roads, reservoirs, railways, tech centers, and other infrastructure in Africa worth hundreds of billions of dollars since 2013.
Critics say the BRI has forced Africa into a “debt trap,” with the continent owing China a combined $73 billion.
Nevertheless, 52 of Africa’s 54 countries have BRI agreements with China.
