Biden visits US-financed Angolan rail hub

President Joe Biden and Chief Operating Officer of Lobito Atlantic Railway Nicolas Gregoire tour the Lobito Port Terminal in Lobito, Angola, Dec. 4, 2024.[VOA]

President Joe Biden got a first-hand look Wednesday at a U.S.-financed rail project that weaves together his personal love of railroads with his desire to leave a legacy in Africa that will outlive his administration.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday headed to a U.S.-financed African development project that weaves together his personal love of railroads with his desire to leave a legacy on the continent that will outlive his administration.

The Lobito Corridor is a 1,300-kilometer rail line stretching from copper-rich Zambia to the port of Lobito in the southwest nation of Angola. The network will form a “strategic economic corridor” under the Biden administration’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment – an initiative meant to counter China’s well-established, sprawling Belt and Road initiative. So far, the Biden administration says it has committed nearly $4 billion towards the project.

Biden, in Angola’s capital on Tuesday, cast the project through his love of passenger rail. As a U.S. senator, he commuted to Washington from Wilmington, Delaware – logging, he said, nearly 340 kilometers on every trip.

“I must tell you up front, with American press here, I’m probably the most pro-rail guy in America,” Biden said Tuesday in Angola’s capital, to laughter from the audience gathered to hear him speak at the nation’s slavery museum.

On Wednesday, he toured the Lobito Port terminal and met with Angolan President João Lourenço, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, and Tanzanian Vice President Philip Mpango.

The White House said Biden saw an American General Electric locomotive used for cargo on the Lobito Atlantic Railway and “was briefed on the operational enhancements underway that will increase regional and international trade, as well as the planned infrastructure upgrades financed by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).”

Same, or different?

Senior administration officials said this rail line will, by the end of the decade, be extended to its full length, stretching from Africa’s Indian Ocean coast to the Atlantic port. Initially, it will transport critical minerals like cobalt and copper from the continent’s deep interior to the coast. When the corridor is completed, a journey that now takes more than 40 days by road can zip across the continent in 40 hours.

“The premise behind the corridor is to be able to take American support and financial capabilities that are limited, and to focus them more deeply in one area, versus spreading that financial support and effort across many countries,” said a senior Biden administration official, who was not identified as is common practice when briefing reporters.

VOA asked the official whether this repeats the age-old colonial narrative of exploiting the continent’s rich, raw resources while not adding value and providing steady work for local populations. A burgeoning youth population on the continent has created an urgent need for jobs, putting strain on many African governments.

“I disagree with the premise that this is for raw products,” the official replied. “Right now, only raw product is coming out. But I think what this rail does – in order to get to higher value products, you need a few things. One of them is affordable and reliable and abundant energy. So the build out of the energy system allows you to then build the value added.”

And others questioned whether this U.S. effort, coming more than a decade after China launched its ambitious Belt and Road initiative, can compete.

“Upon closer inspection, it appears to be a mimic of China’s playbook, one that tacitly acknowledges that Washington lags behind Beijing in terms of its investments in Africa but does little to fill the void that exists in China’s footprint,” said Chris O. Ògúnmọ́dẹdé, an editor, consultant, and analyst of African politics, security, and international relations.

Wang Peng, a researcher at Renmin University of China, published on a Chinese state thinktank, International Cooperation Center, that Western international projects like the Lobito Corridor don’t pose a challenge to China’s initiative because the United States “can’t provide sufficient funds and material conditions to truly implement its ambitious global infrastructure plan.”

Wang Peng also noted the U.S. could undermine it by exerting diplomatic pressure on host countries to force them to tear up cooperation agreements with China; exaggerate the negative impact of the "Belt and Road" project on the local ecological environment and water resources…. and hype up the so-called "debt trap" issue.”

Mounting Chinese debt among African nations is something Biden also mentioned indirectly in his remarks Tuesday, in seeking to cast the U.S. as a reliable partner.

“We’ve also pushed to ensure that developing nations do not have to choose between paying down unsustainable debt and being able to invest in their own people,” he said.

But, as Biden also said, his time is running short as he prepares to leave office, for president-elect Donald Trump. Analysts say this project may be well received by Trump, as it suits his more transactional approach to the continent, and appeals to one of Trump’s biggest backers, billionaire Elon Musk.

“The money has been earmarked already after all,” said James Murphy of Clark University in Massachusetts. “Continuing the Lobito project is a smart idea – Trump does not have to own it except in the sense that it gives him a talking point about our strategic/resource-driven interests in Africa, particularly as a strategy to acquire minerals essential for Elon’s Teslas, as it were.”