Donald Trump won the US presidency. Some in Africa may wonder what would have been for Joe Biden, the now outgoing US President.
When he came to power in 2020, Biden promised to elevate the continent, reviving the US-Africa Summit, which had almost died in Covid-19. His Africa strategy promised to focus on the traditional values of democracy, human rights and green energy. But it also promised to counter Chinese influence and strengthen business ties.
Except that Biden, like Trump, never visited Africa on their terms.
Biden has, of course, promised to visit Angola next month, after initially postponing a trip planned for October. But the visit is likely to be a lame duck one, coming during a transition in which the Democratic Party is certain to become the opposition after Trump's inauguration in January.
In Luanda, he had promised to discuss shared values, but there may be no tangible deals.
Angola has been a key cog in the US strategy as part of the Lobito Corridor, in which Washington wants to use venture capital to build a rail network between Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, linked to the port of Lobito in Angola.
It would be the ultimate challenge to beat back China, which has also been building roads and bridges as it targets key natural resources in these countries.
Analysts say that even if President Biden visits Angola, he won't make any long-term deals. It remains unclear whether he will travel there at all.
“With Donald Trump's victory, the visit of the friend of the man who is sinking the country in every way will be merely a tourist visit or a visit to fulfil a schedule,” argued Sampaio Mucanda, an opposition legislator for Unita, on Wednesday, describing the alliance between Biden and President Joao Lorenco.
In its first term, the Trump administration was mostly inward-looking and less concerned with Africa. Biden hosted the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington in 2022.
In November 2023, Biden hosted President Lourenço at the White House in a visit that marked three decades of diplomatic relations between the two countries. In May this year, Kenya’s President William Ruto became the first African head of State to make a State visit to the White House since 2008.
Angola doesn't have a good memory of the Trump administration, and his return to the White House seems to make it even more uncertain. Biden himself had sent the most important members of his administration to Luanda during his term in office.
Angola's Minister of Transport, Ricardo de Abreu, believes that the current level of relations with the US should continue under the Trump administration.
The government official is optimistic because the relation between Angola and the US includes “issues of an economic nature, the preservation of the climate, the environment and the energy transition that are much more effective than political sensitivity,” he told state-run Radio Nacional de Angola.
President Biden once considered Angola to be the most important country in Africa for the US.
He sent envoys for energy, technology, defence and security sectors, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who praised the Angolan government for its policies.
Under the Lourenço administration, Angola has partially distanced itself from Russia and China, opting for the US in several projects.
Angola is China’s biggest debtor in Africa, and Russia was the country’s largest arms supplier during the civil war and the bastion for training its top army generals.
The US focus on the Lobito Corridor has increased in recent years, signalling a certain advantage over China and Russia, according to commentators in Luanda.
In September, the US State Department described the development of the Lobito Corridor as a multinational partnership among African governments that would help spur economic development through investment in the DRC, Zambia and Angola.
It added that in less than 18 months since the initial US commitment, more than $3 billion has been committed to the development of the Lobito Corridor through investments in several interrelated sectors, including transport and logistics, agriculture, clean energy, health and digital access.
Angolan international relations analyst Osvaldo Mboco believes that Biden's visit to Angola, scheduled for December, will continue to carry weight, arguing that the agreements signed are unlikely to be cancelled.
"And the closest and cheapest corridor to the US is the Lobito corridor, which leads to the Atlantic. Looking at all these elements, I believe that President Trump will not discontinue what has been the relationship between Angola and the US on certain issues," Mboco said on Wednesday.
