Is U.S. investment in Africa coming too late to counter China and Russia on the continent?

Amna Nawaz:

President Biden returns today from the first U.S. presidential trip to the continent of Africa in more than a decade.

Mr. Biden visited Angola to further U.S. investments on the continent, but the Americans are playing a game of catchup with the Chinese, who have spent decades and billions investing, extracting, and, some say, exploiting developing countries.

In Angola this week, a new U.S. commitment to Africa's future, as President Biden promised $600 million in funding for a multinational railway project linking Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, all part of the Trans-Africa Lobito Corridor Railway, a key hub for mineral exports.

Joe Biden, President of the United States: The United States is all in on Africa. The future of the world is here in Africa, in Angola.

Amna Nawaz:

Yet that $600 million U.S. investment is small potatoes compared to China, which invested $21.7 billion in the continent in 2023 alone.

Woman:

This railway will not only speed up the economic development of two of the world's most underdeveloped countries, but also change local people's lives.

Amna Nawaz:

Over the last 20 years, China has become sub-Saharan Africa's largest bilateral trading partner, accounting for 20 percent of the region's exports. The main commodities exported are heavy metals, minerals, and fuel.

In exchange, China has provided billions in infrastructure investments in the region. In almost 24 years, China has invested over $182 billion in loans to 53 African nations. China's Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2013, a trillion-plus-dollar global infrastructure investment project, has sent over $91 billion into Africa, building transportation, energy, and mining infrastructure.

And at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in September, President Xi Jinping promised an additional $51 billion to be invested in the continent.

Xi Jinping, Chinese President (through interpreter):

China is willing to deepen cooperation with Africa in the areas of industry and agriculture, infrastructure, trade, and investment.

Amna Nawaz:

But all of this comes at a cost. Some of the projects built aren't economically sustainable, and sub-Saharan African nations are now over $134 billion in debt to China. China has also been accused of bribing local officials to secure contracts.

And to further understand the race for influence in Africa, I'm joined by Mvemba Phezo Dizolele. He's the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Welcome back. Thanks for being here.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, Center for Strategic and International Studies: Thank you very much, Amna.

Amna Nawaz:

So, Biden's visit to Angola marks sort of his last big trip as president. It's the first visit to the nation by a sitting U.S. president. How big a deal is that? What message do you take away from that trip?

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

It's a big deal.

Timing notwithstanding, this signals that the U.S. is committed to continuing a good relationship with African countries. He made a statement today, new commitment, $600 million that they will be investing in this project, particularly the Lobito Corridor.

We will remember, Amna, that for eight years since President Obama left, no African — no U.S. president went to Africa. And even though President Biden had hosted the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit, he made a lot of commitment that did not necessarily translate.

So people had been wondering if Africa still mattered. And the fact that he made the effort to go, even with 50 days before he steps down, that's very impressive. And people take it as such.

Amna Nawaz:

Well, you say it sends a message that Africa matters to the U.S., but you saw in that report how dramatically different the level of investment from China is versus what the U.S. has been investing on the continent.

How much of Biden's visit is fueled by this need or want to try to counter Chinese influence? And is the American effort too little, too late?

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

I think it's a little late, but late doesn't mean never. You can catch up.

I think the U.S. spent the last 35 years not really taking Africa seriously. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. was the only superpower. They could have really restructured and reframed the world.

Amna Nawaz:

That was a missed opportunity, in your view.

(Crosstalk)

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

And that was a missed opportunity, 30 years of this.

So, now that you have China that really seized that moment, investing over $170 billion in various projects, China really has planted its flag and the U.S. has to catch up.

Amna Nawaz:

How is that going down on the ground? I know you have visited Angola and officials there at the Lobito Corridor, at the port terminus there. What are they telling you about these?

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

Well, they're excited about this.

When you talk to the officials, they're very excited about this project, because, to them, it shows to the population that they're doing something.

The challenge is, the average Angolan was not really aware of this. If you talk to the farmers along the railroad, they didn't know anything about it, if you talk to civil society. So I think the work has been cut out for both Angola and the U.S. to try to translate this so that the stakeholders, the Angolan people, particularly, feel invested in this.

Amna Nawaz:

We know, of course, that this is critical when it comes to us need for the minerals that we're talking about exporting from African nations to fuel the technology future the U.S. is trying to build.

We also know these nations are much more than just exporters of these minerals. You're talking about a continent that's home to 1.5 billion people. So, to have superpowers competing to some degree for resources, for partnership and alliance, what does that mean for a country like Angola or Zambia or Kenya?

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

So, for Angola, it's about options and choices.

African countries on average welcome great power competition, because it gives them a chance to choose who they want to deal with. And Angola is kind of the epitome of this. You find Russian, Chinese, Brazilian, everybody in Angola.

However, I think the big challenge for the U.S. will be, because the U.S. sees China as an adversary and vice versa, they cannot — neither China nor the U.S. can afford to do this thing without collaborating. China controls the mines.

So if the U.S. is going to evacuate these products out of Congo and Zambia to this railroad, the Lobito Corridor, but if the Chinese control the mines, so the Chinese still have leverage, they can block the mines and push it towards the Indian Ocean, which is the tradition where they have been taking the resources as well.

So you cannot avoid this collaboration. In fact, when I was in Angola, Amna, just a quick story, I was talking to the board of the Benguela railroad. And they told me, recently, we ordered 100 locomotives from China. I say, why just China, not America? They say, well, but we asked the Chinese to put GE engines in those locomotives.

So that's already a prime example of collaboration. The GE engines couldn't get there without approval from the State Department or Department of Commerce.

Amna Nawaz:

Well, as you know, these investments that President Biden is making now only really make a difference if they're continued by the next administration. The incoming president, president-elect Trump, has a very different world view than the outgoing president, President Biden.

Do you see those investments like this railway corridor being continued by the next administration?

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

That's the question we're all asking.

But we know a couple things about President Trump. We know that he's keen on counteracting China. So this is an opportunity for him to do that. The challenge, as I said, it's not going to be easy, because China is deeply involved in these countries.

But then, two, the question that we ask also is, when President Trump chooses to counteract China, will he punish China or will he punish the Africans for partnering with China? So time will tell us what President Trump does, but we know that he definitely will take this seriously.

Amna Nawaz:

Time will tell us, indeed.

That is Mvemba Phezo Dizolele from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Great to have you here. Thank you so much.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele:

Thank you, Amna.