How Biden’s $1 billion pledge to Angola signals a renewed effort to challenge China’s dominance on the continent. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Chapter 1: What prompted Biden's visit to Angola?
Joe Biden recently became the first sitting president to visit Angola, Africa. While there, the president promised more than $1 billion in U.S. assistance, aiming to strengthen relations in the region and combat China's presence there.
Chapter 2: How is the U.S. responding to China's influence in Africa?
In this episode, we sit down with an expert on the region to discuss America's shifting focus in Africa and what it might look like in the new Trump administration. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss how the U.S. is approaching Africa is the head of Eurasia Group's Africa Practice, Amaka Onku.
Amaka, thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
So President Biden just made this first ever presidential trip to Angola and announced over a billion dollars in U.S. aid to that country. The U.S. has made several trips to Africa in recent years, largely to combat China's growing influence in the region. First, for our listeners, can you give us some background on China's presence in the region?
Sure. So China has had an Africa policy, a very kind of clear strategic policy, I would say, since the early 2000s. You can see some of the memes about how every Chinese foreign minister, the first trip was always to Africa for 33 years. The strategy was clear. It was in exchange for us getting resources. Oftentimes it was oil from these African countries.
We'll finance large infrastructure governments. A lot of it was government to government financing, you know, Chinese companies, some state companies versus African governments. I wanted to build bridges, roads. And we will then also... sell lots of goods and services, but also the money that we're financing is effectively being used to buy stuff from us to build the bridges.
So that was a strategy from the African perspective. And this is kind of where you'll see we'll get to how I think it has now influenced how the US sees Africa. But from the African perspective, This was welcome because a lot of the traditional sources of funding, the World Bank, U.S., Western partners were not financing big ticket infrastructure projects.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the Belt and Road Initiative?
A lot of funding from the West was going towards more micro health care, democracy promotion, education, things like that, and not the things that some governments thought were critical for economic competitiveness.
Got it. And what you're describing is called the Belt and Road Initiative. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us?
Yes, it's a part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is a global initiative that you could argue is a tool for soft influence for China. And often, if you look at all the countries that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative, many of them fell in line with China's One China policy, you know, removed diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. So definitely a tool for soft foreign policy influence.
Sure. And how are these types of programs going? How is it actually playing out in terms of building infrastructure, et cetera, what they're supposed to be accomplishing? And how do citizens there feel about them?
I think it's a mixed bag. You know, when I was in Kenya, for example, for the summer, I took a Chinese finance train from Nairobi, the capital, to Mombasa, one of the main coastal cities. Every time I took it, packed. lots of people, clearly a very valuable economic connector in the country. But there's also criticism that it was very expensive.
And there are other infrastructure projects that have not been as useful or were never finished. And there were in some cases where there was a lot of leakages, you know, collision between African officials and the Chinese counterparts that just meant that the money was wasted. So I'd say it's a mixed bag, frankly, like anything else, you know, really big picture the way I see it.
In the 2000s, China was the new kid on the block when it came to Africa. In the 1960s, the U.S. was the new kid on the block when he came to Africa. It was the new non-colonial power. And both of them made a lot of mistakes when they were the new kid on the block. In the 1960s, it was very controversial. When the U.S. came on the scene in Africa,
Again, New Kid on the Block, after the colonial era, these new African countries had just won independence. There was a lot of controversy with the U.S. relationships. It was accusations of the U.S. supporting funding coups, assassinating people. Of course, it was in the middle of the Cold War, right?
So I feel like there's always that kind of controversy when there is a new block of power emerging and growing.
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Chapter 4: How do Chinese infrastructure projects impact African nations?
Obviously, there's a debt involved here with these loans. Do a lot of these countries end up finding themselves in crippling debt? Are they able to actually pay their way out of them? How's that playing out?
Good question. So that's something that comes up a lot. So a lot of the Belt and Road projects, yes, involves financing big infrastructure projects. It's a lot of money. It does mean that there is a lot of debt servicing costs that come along with it. But the narrative that somehow Africa's debt problem is a Chinese problem is actually misleading.
Because if you look at, you know, we look at the numbers a lot here at Eurasia Group, but if you look at the numbers, most debts owed by African countries is not owed to Chinese entities. Most debts owed by African countries is actually owed to multilateral agencies, and commercial debtors like Eurobonds. People often say China is the biggest bilateral lender. That is absolutely true.
But that's a very specific narrow category. Most countries do not loan directly. Most Western countries do not give big loans directly to African countries. So, of course, China would be the biggest bilateral lender, but other countries like the US, France, UK, a lot of their funding, their loans goes through the multilateral agencies, the Bretton Woods agencies.
So I think it's an important thing. It's an important kind of caveat to put that it's not the case that most debt owed by these countries is owed to China.
So now the Biden administration is giving $1 billion in U.S. aid. What is that designated to do? What kinds of stipulations does that come with in terms of how it can be used?
Yeah, so my understanding is that a lot of that goes through U.S. aid. It's about 800 million of it goes through USAID. Some of it is through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Commodity Credit Corporation. So you can think about a lot of the things that USAID funds. A lot of it is health care, education. And then there's some like community promotion type stuff.
So, I mean, that's how I would think. Look, I'll be honest with you. All of these numbers, it's always, it's very hard, even when it's the U.S. numbers. Certainly when it's Chinese numbers. When it's Chinese numbers, like you take it with a big grain of salt because they always come and announce big numbers and most of it never materializes. But even when it's the U.S.
numbers, it's often very hard to figure out what is already existing programs and what is new. Because they'll always come and announce a collation of stuff that is already existing. It's really hard to tell apart what's actually new there.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of U.S. aid to Angola?
Chapter 6: How does Africa's debt situation relate to China?
I think it's extremely important. And if you think about the choice of Angola, It was in part because of the Lobito corridor, which is all about access and critical minerals. So absolutely, this is an extremely important part of the calculation for both China and the US is securing access to those critical minerals, or at least ensuring that access to them is not blocked off by your competitor.
We're about to have a new administration, the Trump administration. Do you see anything changing in regard to what was just promised to Angola as the new administration comes in? Is this the kind of thing that might be reversed or not?
No, so more broadly, Africa policy in the U.S. has been pretty stable across administrations. And if you look, you can draw a line all the way from Bush through Trump. And this is what I mean. So I do think that there is a broader shift happening. So when we started this conversation, you asked me about what's China doing in Africa.
over the last decade or so there has been a growing awareness in the u.s amongst u.s officials that the failure to center economic transformation in their relationships with african countries that doesn't not to say that human rights and governance and those things that usually the u.s led with are not important they're very important
But it's really to center what is most critical and what is most top of mind for these African countries, economic transformation, which in their relationships was a mistake, or at least there could be improvement. So there has been a shift. in terms of centering the relationship on value promotion to trying to center it more on trade and investment.
And we've seen that shift run through both Democratic and Republican administrations. So that shift has been happening, starting with Obama's Power Africa, through Trump's Prosper Africa, through Biden's kind of really major focus on the Lobito Corridor.
which is all about trade, which is all about investment and infrastructure and kind of like taking more of like, you know, you could call it a Chinese approach to fund infrastructure projects. It's something that both sides agree on. Deal in. What can we get in return? We get critical minerals, you get infrastructure. Fine, let's make a deal.
That sounds like something Trump's people will go a long way. So all of that to say that I don't see a shift because this is something that both sides can really agree on.
Yeah, it makes sense. And what do you think the future of Western nations and G7 nations in Africa is going to look like in the next decade or so?
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Chapter 7: What role do rare earth minerals play in U.S.-China competition in Africa?
Final question. From your perspective, what do you think is one of the most important things to keep an eye on in the next couple of years in terms of developments with relationships between the U.S. and Africa?
So here's what I think. So this is a little bit philosophical, but I think that the big challenge for the U.S. is to figure out how to center, in my view, state capacity, like make sure at the core, I guess, of what the U.S. 's foreign policy tries to convey is our values are better, right? Like we want you to look like us. Democracy is good. Don't be like China.
on russia and the rest of them and most african countries agree with that but i think that there is a challenge in not just value promoting but actually putting your money where your mouth is to make sure that those systems deliver concrete public goods to their citizens
it's not just for values democracy for democracy's sake it's does it deliver electricity infrastructure prosperity you know jobs right really centering that as well on not just talking about those bodies and i think that's for me that's the challenge right and i i've seen the shift moving in that direction and i think that The U.S.
needs to continue moving in that direction and figuring out how to crystallize and bring those two things together better to ensure that people don't give up on the idea of democracy or that they don't decouple that democracy can also bring prosperity. Like we actually have to work hard at making sure that those two things link up. It doesn't happen automatically.
Yeah, well, let's hope that we do see that progress. Amaka Onku, thank you so much for talking with us.
Sure. Anytime.
That was Eurasia Group's Amaka Onku, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire.
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