by Nurat Uthman
US President Joe Biden is in Angola on Tuesday for the first and only visit to sub-Saharan Africa of his presidency, which is focused on a major infrastructure project that is a counterpoint to China’s investments.
Biden arrived in the oil-rich Portuguese-speaking country late Monday for a two-day visit centred on a multinational project to rehabilitate a railway line ferrying minerals from inland countries to the Angolan port of Lobito for export.
In anticipation of his trip, the Angolan government declared December 3 and 4 public holidays and deployed heavy security across the capital Luanda, a city of around 9.5 million people.
Biden, who hands over to Donald Trump on January 20, starts his visit on Tuesday with talks with President Joao Lourenco in the capital Luanda and is due to later deliver remarks at the National Slavery Museum.
On Wednesday, he is to travel to Lobito, an Atlantic port city about 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of Luanda.
The port is at the heart of the Lobito Corridor project that has received loans from the United States, the European Union and others to rehabilitate a key railway connecting the mineral-rich inland countries of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia with Lobito, from where they can be exported.
It is “a real game changer for US engagement in Africa,” John Kirby, the White House national security communications advisor, told reporters Monday.
“It’s our fervent hope that as the new team comes in and takes a look at this, that they see the value too, that they see how it will help drive a more secure, more prosperous, more economically stable continent.”
