US Secretary of State Antony Blinken‘s visit to Africa ended with an Angola stopover. Blinken was striving to shore up trans-Atlantic trade alliances in light of flux in the Middle East. Blinken visited four African countries, desiring to reassert the US position as a crucial security partner as other global concerns take the front seat.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also walked alongside leading Angolan officials in their palm-filled capital and travelled to an exhibition dedicated to a vast U.S.-funded railway project.
Blinken started his tour on Monday, with visits to Cape Verde and the Ivory Coast, before wrapping up in Angola on Friday. He suggested that countries like Niger, where the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group is involved, have seen insecurity “getting manifestly more threatening and worse.” In contrast, he expressed that the United States wants to deliver technical support, intelligence sharing, and supplies to Nigeria and other regional allies working to stabilise the Sahel region.
“It goes to having a comprehensive approach that genuinely focuses on citizens’ security, working with local communities in partnership, demonstrating the security forces that are there, first and foremost, to protect them and to support their needs,” Blinken told journalists.
Further, Angola embraced Washington to assist in building a $250 million rail corridor that will pipe cobalt, copper and other critical minerals out of Angola and its neighbours, diversifying U.S. stockpiles of raw materials necessary to the green revolution. Angolan and American officeholders hope it will boost a broader economic trade, and the U.S.-funded Export-Import Bank has dedicated a $900 million loan for a U.S.-made solar panel project along the rail line, the bank’s largest-ever investment in that type of installation in Africa.
Biden administration officials express Angola’s warming connection with Washington is a success for both countries and a model for economic partnership with nations that have sometimes felt overlooked by the United States or depicted as pawns in more extensive geopolitical manoeuvres. They characterise the reversal in Angola as an exceptionally positive sign of the United States’ appeal as an associate in Africa and the developing world.
“We see America’s future and Africa’s future as joined,” Blinken told on Thursday in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
The US and Angola’s “relationship is more powerful, it’s more significant, it’s farther-reaching than at any moment in our 30-year friendship,” Blinken expressed during the capstone of a four-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa that he made even as the Biden administration misrepresents crises in Gaza and Ukraine. Angolan President João Lourenço visited Biden in the Oval Office in November.
The economic partnership has deepened relations between the former antagonists in Washington and Luanda, as Angolan leaders have played an essential part in mediating a dispute in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and have been more ready to stand up to Moscow and Beijing, including the caution to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about World War III.
“It’s mutually reinforcing,” another senior Biden administration official stated, describing what partnering on infrastructure projects has enabled in Angola. “We have an intense diplomatic partnership with them, which we didn’t have in the past. We’re working seriously with them to address the problems in eastern D.R.C.”
“People want to talk to us, want us to be involved in helping them solve their problems,” the official expressed. “And that’s nice. I’m not sure you necessarily see that with some of their external partners.”
Moreover, Angolan leaders state they welcome the collaboration with the Biden administration.
“All partnerships that can fit into our needs and our policy in terms of our developmental policy are welcome,” Angolan Foreign Minister Téte António briefed reporters after meeting with Blinken.
As for the criticism he gave to Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, he stated, “We believe as Angola that the best friends are the ones who tell the truth,” he expressed. “We had to warn our friends.”
