President Joe Biden will travel to Angola on Sunday night in what the White House says is to show support for the African nation amid Chinese influence.
The trip, scheduled for Monday through Wednesday, will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited Africa since former President Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.
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Biden is set to meet with Angolan President João Lourenço in the capital of Luanda; he previously met Lourenço in December 2023 in the White House, the administration said Sunday.
The U.S. president is also slated to speak about the African country’s cultural heritage, health security, and agribusiness. The administration said 80% of its $55 billion pledge to Africa in 2022 was accomplished.
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“More people are getting connected to 3G and now building out 5G networks, as well as building out renewable energy,” a senior administration official said, declining to be named. “In fact, the U.S. has approved financing through Ex-Im Bank of nearly $2.5 billion of renewable energy projects that will be able to take countries from energy deficit to energy exporters to their neighbors.”
The trip comes a few months after Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged more than $50 billion to prop up Africa over the next three years, saying his country’s relationship with the continent was “at its best in history.”
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The senior U.S. administration official acknowledged China’s influence in the region but countered that African nations are welcoming of help from anywhere.
“The one thing leaders in Africa do not want is for folks to say they’re under — they have the Chinese investment; they have Chinese influence, and therefore, nobody else in the world should go to Africa,” the official said. “That is the opposite of what everybody in Africa wants.”
