Biden pumps up Africa relations, will visit next year
WASHINGTON >> President Joe Biden said Thursday he will visit sub-Saharan Africa next year, the first U.S. president to travel there in a decade. He announced the trip — still unscheduled — as he wrapped up a U.S.Africa Leaders Summit by stressing he’s serious about increasing U.S. attention to the growing continent.
His promise of a personal visit came as Biden declared to the 49 leaders gathered for the summit that “Africa belongs at the table” in every conversation of global consequence.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you in your home countries,” Biden said near the end of the three-day summit that the administration billed as primarily a listening session with the continent’s leaders.
The Biden administration used the summit — a follow-up to one held in 2014 by Barack Obama — as the latest part of a charm offensive with leaders of African nations. The administration is looking
to strengthen relations with those nations as China has surpassed the U.S. in trade with Africa and is aiming to grow its military presence.
The continent is crucial to global powers because of its rapidly growing population, significant natural resources and sizable
voting bloc in the United Nations. Some leaders who took part in summit made clear they want the Biden administration to steer away from forcing them to choose between the U.S. and its global competitors when it comes to trade matters.
“These are economic opportunities,”
Niger President Mohamed Bazoum told The Associated Press. “Companies from Turkey and China come and invest in Niger in a win-win type of relationship. It is something that American investors can do as well.”
Biden on Thursday formally announced that he supports the African Union becoming a permanent member of the Group of 20 nations. He also announced plans to spend $2 billion to help bolster food security on the continent and $165 million to help African nations carry out peaceful and transparent elections next year.
Those announcements came after Biden this week detailed his administration’s commitment to spend $55 billion on government programming in Africa over the next three years, over and above the billions that American private companies would invest.
“Our eyes are fixed squarely on the future,” Biden said.
The elections-funding announcement came after Biden met on Wednesday with a small group of leaders whose countries have big votes in the new year.
Those leaders: Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Liberia President George Manneh Weah, Madagascar President Andry Nirina
Rajoelina, Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari and Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio.
The White House said in a statement that Biden, in his meeting with the leaders, reflected on the state of democracy in his own country after last year’s Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. That’s when supporters of then-President Donald Trump violently sought to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Biden.
Biden also spoke about the recent U.S. midterm elections, when voters rejected a number of 2020-results-denying candidates, with the president making his case that “the strength and resilience of American democracy was reaffirmed in the process.”
Thousands of Trump supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent insurrection, breaking through police barricades and smashing windows in the building, crying out to hang the vice president.