The Lobito Corridor and Africa’s Balance of Power: Why Biden Chose Angola

The Lobito Corridor and Africa’s Balance of Power: Why Biden Chose Angola

At the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022, President Joe Biden promised to visit Africa. Nearly two years later — and with his term nearing its end — he is finally delivering on that pledge.

Instead of traveling to Kenya, Washington’s closest ally on the continent, Biden has chosen to head southwest and visit Angola. Scheduled for October 13–15, this trip will be both his first and last presidential visit to Africa. It also carries significant weight for U.S. strategic interests on the continent. Biden will become the first American president to visit sub-Saharan Africa since Barack Obama’s trips to Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.

But why Angola, a relatively little-known country on the global stage?

Angola’s Strategic Importance

After nearly four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule, Angola gained independence in 1975 with the backing of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China. Rich in oil and mineral resources, the country has undertaken a series of political and economic reforms in recent years to raise its global profile.

Washington’s renewed focus on Angola is largely tied to the Lobito Corridor project. The initiative aims to transport copper, cobalt, and other strategic minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to Angola’s Lobito Port. Originally built over a century ago by Belgian and Portuguese interests, much of the railway was destroyed during Angola’s civil war. In 2004, Chinese companies invested $2 billion in rebuilding the line. But in 2022, a U.S.-backed consortium outbid China to secure the rights to further develop the railway.

Biden has made it clear that speeding up investment in the Lobito Corridor will be one of the central items on his Angola agenda. The project marks America’s largest-ever railway investment in Africa and has the potential to become a strategic trade and transport artery linking the continent’s interior to its Atlantic coast. Currently, minerals and goods from the DRC and Zambia travel by truck under poor conditions to South Africa’s Durban port — a journey that can take days — before being shipped onward, especially to China. The Lobito Corridor, by contrast, promises a much faster rail link to Western markets, and it is designed to reduce the West’s dependency on China for critical minerals.

U.S.-China Rivalry

As Africa’s second-largest oil exporter, Angola holds a key position in the energy sector. China has long recognized this importance: as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, it has invested heavily in Angola’s infrastructure. Today, Angola is China’s second-largest African trading partner. According to the Chinese Embassy in Luanda, Chinese companies have helped construct or repair 2,800 km of railways, 20,000 km of roads, more than 100,000 housing units, over 100 schools, and 50 hospitals. More than 400 Chinese firms currently operate in the country.

For the United States, deepening ties with Angola is both an effort to balance China’s influence and to secure faster, cheaper access to vital mineral resources. The Lobito Corridor, in this sense, serves as a counterweight to China’s TAZARA railway, which links Tanzania and Zambia. These competing infrastructure projects are emblematic of the broader U.S.-China struggle for economic and political influence in Africa.

Angola’s Role in Security

Angola’s importance goes beyond economics. The country has also emerged as a key regional player in conflict mediation. Its diplomatic engagement in the tensions between the DRC and Rwanda has highlighted Angola’s growing role as a security actor. The United States, eager to promote stability in Central Africa, views Angola as a strategic partner in this arena as well.

U.S.-Angola Relations: From Tension to Partnership

Formal ties between Angola and the United States date back to 1975, but relations were strained during Angola’s long civil war and the Cold War. At independence, Washington backed UNITA and other opposition groups against the Marxist MPLA government, while the USSR and Cuba supported the ruling regime. Angola thus became a Cold War battleground.

Relations normalized only in the late 1990s, as the civil war ended and Angola emerged as a major oil producer. By the early 2000s, Angola was exporting 300,000 of its 750,000 daily barrels of oil to the United States, making it one of America’s largest African suppliers.

Under President George W. Bush, U.S. policy increasingly emphasized Africa’s oil. Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2001 National Energy Policy report identified Angola and Nigeria as central to America’s future energy security. Since then, oil has remained the cornerstone of U.S.-Angola relations.

In recent years, however, the focus has shifted. With Angola undertaking political and economic reforms, Washington has sought to expand cooperation into infrastructure and development — with the Lobito Corridor as the flagship project.

Angola’s Choice

While much attention has been placed on Washington’s interest in Angola, Luanda’s own strategic positioning matters just as much. Angola recognizes both its growing regional influence and the geostrategic importance of its place in global supply chains.

Sérgio Calundungo, President of the Angolan Observatory of Politics and Social Affairs, commented on Biden’s visit:

“We know there is great competition among the United States, Russia, and China in certain regions of the world when it comes to international cooperation and geopolitics. This visit could be a sign that Angolan authorities have chosen one of the major players.”

President João Lourenço himself signaled a shift last September by skipping the China-Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC), which was attended by many African leaders, thereby hinting at a move away from Beijing and closer alignment with Washington.

Still, challenges remain. Angola owes China a staggering $17 billion and continues to rely on Chinese-backed infrastructure projects already underway. Lourenço may seek U.S. investment and capital, but whether Angola can afford to turn its back on Beijing entirely remains an open question.

Sources:

Originally published in Independent Türkçe, October 3, 2024

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The West’s New Exile Route: Refugees to Africa

For centuries, Africa has been more than a site of exploitation for Europe — it has also served as a dumping ground for the unwanted. France sent its convicts and political exiles to Gabon and Djibouti. Spain relocated those it expelled from Cuba to the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea. Portugal deported criminals and “undesirable” individuals (the degredados ) to Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea. Thus, the continent functioned both as a field of plunder for the West’s underground wealth and as a prison for those it deemed unworthy of living in Europe. Despite the passage of time, the Western mindset has hardly changed. Today, electronic waste, discarded computers, and piles of second-hand clothes no one wants are still shipped to Africa — this time under the label of “aid.” History repeats itself. Once again, the West is seeking ways to offload what it perceives as excess — undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, and those it stigmatizes as “criminals” or “barbarians” — back ont...
Read more

How the UAE is Enveloping Africa Through Ports

 In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has drawn significant attention with its rapidly expanding economic, diplomatic, and military presence in Africa. While projecting an image as a modern, progressive, and investment-friendly Arab nation, this Gulf state’s activities reveal deeper contradictions. From supporting the Rapid Support Forces—the perpetrators of genocide in Sudan—thereby destabilizing the region and illegally exporting gold from the chaos, the UAE has built its influence on profound inconsistencies. This marks a fundamental shift in Emirati foreign policy toward the continent. Following its independence in 1971, the UAE’s relations with Africa, initially based on religious and geographic proximity, evolved into a purely strategic and interest-driven approach as the economic clout of Abu Dhabi and Dubai grew. Despite formal sovereignty, the UAE’s ruling elite long acted as a pro-Western proxy. Its current role in Sudan’s chaos is a clear and ruthless contin...
Read more

The Normalization of Atrocity: The Silent Cry of the Sudanese People

Throughout history, the African continent has witnessed countless wars, massacres, and genocides. While the crimes committed by European colonizers are now learned through books, archives, and documentaries, today’s tragedies in Sudan, Congo, and other African nations unfold before our eyes—streamed live on our screens. Yet little has changed. The wars raging for years in Sudan and Congo are often reduced to a few superficial news briefs, barely making a dent in our collective conscience. On social media, they appear only briefly, slipping into the “explore” pages of a handful of users. In newspapers, almost no one deems these tragedies “worthy” of attention. The empathy shown for Gaza gives hope; but how can we explain our silence toward Africa? Have we become so conditioned to seeing Africa through the images of “hunger, famine, poverty, and endless wars” that every tragedy there now feels “ordinary”? No African mother gives birth knowing her child will die of hunger; no fath...
Read more