Angola’s LUANDA “The future runs through Angola, through Africa,” said President Joe Biden from a hilltop overlooking the Bay of Corimba.
During his speech Tuesday from Luanda, Angola’s National Museum of Slavery, Biden made the remark. In the shadow of the historic church of the complex, where Africans were compelled to undergo Christian baptism before to being sent on ships to participate in the transatlantic slave trade, he stood. It is thought that the first Africans brought into slavery in 1619 from what is now Angola arrived in the 13 British possessions.
Speaking to a group of young leaders and diplomats from Angola as well as American descendants of enslaved Africans, Biden called the slave trade the United States’ original sin and explained that in order to truly appreciate how far our two nations have come in their alliance, we must remember where we started.
Even though he was in the last weeks of his presidency, the president admitted that he wanted to travel to Angola to observe directly how the relationship between the two nations had changed significantly over the past 400 years. This is the first visit to Angola by an American president.
Biden visited the port town of Lobito on Wednesday, the last day of his three-day tour, to meet with officials from Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the White House announced $600 million in additional funding for the Lobito corridor, the leaders took a tour of the port.
The focus of the Biden administration’s African initiatives has been the Lobito corridor train and infrastructure project. According to the White House, under Biden’s administration, the United States has contributed over $4 billion to the endeavor. The funds have aided with the reconstruction of the train line that carries food and highly sought-after minerals, like as copper and cobalt, from Zambia and Congo to the port of Lobito for export to international markets.
The project is reducing the time it takes to get commodities to ports from 45 days to about 45 hours, as Biden stated several times throughout the tour. According to a senior administration official, that would eventually result in more global output and lower prices for products like semiconductors, batteries, and electric cars. “It’s revolutionary,” Biden declared.
The White House also announced a $553 million direct loan from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to the Lobito Atlantic Railway, while Biden was at the port touring a huge American-built cargo locomotive. The funds are especially designated for the operation and improvement of an 800-mile rail line that connects the port to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
During their discussion at the presidential palace, Biden told Angolan President Jo o Louren that the more you achieve, the more we prosper, and the more the world triumphs.
The president’s visit coincides with a surge in international interest in Africa. With an emphasis on gaining access to mineral-rich areas like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, China has been dramatically increasing its investment in African businesses and resources during the past ten or so years.
During his address, Biden subtly attacked China’s business practices by stating that, in too many locations, workers were still returning home without electricity and on dirt roads ten years after the alleged investment was made. In his speech at the museum, the president described a nation beset by crippling debt, a town without a school, and a city without a hospital. We look for a better approach. open-access, transparent, high-quality investment to safeguard the environment, the rule of law, and workers.
Prior to Biden’s trip, a senior administration official told the media that the United States and other Western nations are promoting themselves as a superior alternative to China rather than attempting to displace it.
In an interview with NBC News in Luanda, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby stated that this is not a race with another nation. According to him, the United States wishes to offer real and open investment prospects in Africa so that nations who have accrued debt or engaged in high-interest financing from other sources can now pay off their debt.
Biden pledged to provide $55 million in new funding throughout Africa between 2022 and 2025 during his remarks at the Slavery Museum. The government has thus far contributed roughly $40 million. Additionally, the United States is giving Angola’s enslavement museum a $229,000 grant for conservation and repair as part of the financial announcements Biden made Wednesday afternoon before departing Angola.
According to Biden, the world may learn from Angola’s and the United States’ common past. It is evidence of the human ability to make amends and shows that despite the atrocities of slavery and war, there is hope for the future.
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