The country rejected China and embraced Washington and Europe to help build a $250 million rail corridor that would transport cobalt, copper and other important minerals out of Angola and its neighbors, diversifying American supplies of raw materials critical to the Green Revolution. Angolan and American officials hope this will lead to a broader economic boom, and the US-financed Export-Import Bank has committed to providing a $900 million loan for a US-made solar panel project along the railway line, the bank's largest investment ever in such a project. Type of installation in Africa.
Angola's foreign minister also publicly declared to his Russian counterpart last year that he was concerned about the outbreak of “World War III” as a result of the war in Ukraine, sharp words for a longtime major backer.
Biden administration officials say Angola's warming relationship with Washington is a win-win for both countries and a model of economic cooperation with countries that have at times felt neglected by the United States or portrayed as pawns in larger geopolitical maneuvers. They describe the transformation in Angola as a particularly positive sign of the attractiveness of the United States as a partner in Africa and throughout the developing world.
“We see that the future of America and the future of Africa are linked,” Blinken said Thursday in the Angolan capital of Luanda, where the waves of the Atlantic Ocean hit the shores of a city whose skyscrapers crowd the pastel-colored remnants of Portuguese colonial rule.
“The relations between the United States and Angola have become stronger, more important, and more far-reaching than at any time during our 30-year friendship,” Blinken said during the culmination of a four-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa. While the Biden administration deals with crises in Gaza and Ukraine. Angolan President João Lourenço visited Biden in the Oval Office in November.
Biden administration officials bristle at the idea of being engaged in a geopolitical competition with China and Russia over Africa, saying that even if those rivals were not active, Washington would build the same relationships on the continent. They say that the Cold War-era framework is not a useful way to think about relations, and that African countries do not need to face a binary choice between the United States and Beijing or Moscow.
“They want to have a diverse group of partners, right? They don't want to be completely dependent on China. They honestly don't,” said one senior administration official, speaking like others, on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about American diplomacy. “They want to depend entirely on us.”
“Our competition with China does not define our relationship with Africa, but it is not separate from it,” the official said. In these meetings, “this is part of what we do, but it is only one aspect of it.”
Instead, they say a partnership with the United States could provide jobs for Angolans and Americans, diversify supplies of critical minerals that are overly dependent on China, and advance US climate goals by encouraging renewable energy projects.
Angola fought a bitter war for independence from Portugal, which turned into a 27-year civil war in 1975 after the country got rid of colonial rule. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported the ruling government. During the Cold War, Washington supported opposing forces. The conflict has torn the country apart and left deep suspicion toward the United States on the part of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who led the country for 38 years before stepping down in 2017. Under his rule, the country was known to be among the most corrupt. In Africa.
Resentment toward Washington has created fertile ground for countries like China to come in and offer to finance massive infrastructure projects, including a railway line across much of the country to connect the port of Lobito in Angola with the resource-rich interior. The project was completed in 2012 and was built largely by Chinese workers who came to build and then left. China has lent more money to Angola than any other country in Africa.
The railway project did not go as planned. The equipment was faulty, and China was slow to fix it. Dos Santos' successor, Lourenço, has opened the door to looking beyond the country's traditional partners.
When Angola began considering expanding the project a decade later, officials rejected a Chinese offer and opted for a 30-year concession to a U.S.-backed consortium to rebuild and expand the lines and operate rail service. Construction work took place last year, and the first shipments of minerals crossed Angola this month. Supporters of the project say the American-made steel for the bridges needed for the railroad created hundreds of jobs in the United States.
The Angolan and American partners say they eventually want to extend the line, which they have called the Lobito Corridor, eastward to the Indian Ocean. They say it will spark an economic boom in a region suffering from a lack of roads and railways. Indeed, European and international investors redoubled American efforts, offering agricultural and industrial projects along the new railway line.
Economic cooperation has deepened ties between the former rivals in Washington and Luanda, where Angolan leaders have played an important role in mediating the conflict in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and have been more willing to stand up to Moscow and Beijing, including by warning. To Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about World War III.
“They are mutually reinforcing,” another senior Biden administration official said, describing what the partnership has made possible on infrastructure projects in Angola. We have a really deep diplomatic partnership with them, which we didn't have in the past. We are working seriously with them to address the problems in eastern DRC.
“People want to talk to us, and they want us to participate in helping them solve their problems,” the official said. “And that's nice. I'm not sure you necessarily see that with some of their external partners.”
Angolan leaders say they welcome the partnership with the Biden administration.
“We welcome all partnerships that can fit our needs and policy regarding our development policy,” Angolan Foreign Minister Tite Antonio told reporters after his meeting with Blinken.
As for the criticism he directed at Russia regarding its invasion of Ukraine, he said: “In Angola, we believe that the best friends are those who tell the truth.” “We had to warn our friends.”
