Biden courts African leaders, but some are skeptical
After a flurry of promises during a summit that sought to renew America’s standing in Africa, President Joe Biden sent the continent’s leaders home Thursday with a promise to return the visit — the first by a U.S. president to sub-saharan Africa since 2015 — although he declined to say when the trip would happen, or to which countries.
Publicly, many of the nearly 50 leaders who made the trip to Washington praised Biden for the three-day event that included a commitment of $55 billion in U.S. spending in Africa over three years, as well as dozens of business deals and initiatives in areas like technology, space, cybersecurity, food security, and the environment.
As the summit closed Thursday, Biden also underscored America’s more traditional priorities in Africa when he announced another $2 billion for emergency humanitarian aid on top of $11 billion in recent food security announcements.
But behind the scenes, officials from several African countries, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid disparaging their American hosts, were less complimentary about the summit. Some said they had heard big American promises before, notably during the inaugural 2014 U.s.-africa summit hosted by President Barack Obama, that did not come to pass.
Others noted that some of Biden’s promises depend on approval from Congress at a time when a strained U.S. economy and the war in Ukraine are dominant concerns.
That gap highlighted the challenge for Biden in holding such an expansive summit, and of winning the confidence of a continent with such a broad appeal when the circumstances of its leaders vary so dramatically.
African leaders have repeatedly stressed that they do not want to be forced to take sides between the United States and its strategic competitors on the continent, notably China and Russia. Biden made it clear that he heard those appeals and was at pains to avoid framing the summit as part of a strategic competition.
“We have the will to work with Africans and we need you,” Biden told the African leaders. “I hope we’re making it clear today and every day — it’s not just showing the will, but doing the work. And there’s a lot of work to be done.”
President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger said in an interview Thursday morning that the summit had succeeded in strengthening the conversation between African countries and the Biden administration. “The United States is showing increased interest for Africa, and it allows them to understand the needs of the continent and what is at stake,” he said.
Summits are rooted in symbolism, and some leaders fared better than others during their time in Washington. (Five African leaders were not invited, mostly because they had come to power through military takeovers.)
Biden met privately at the White House with the leaders of six countries facing elections next year — Congo, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Liberia and Madagascar — where he urged them to hold free and fair votes. Some later posted “grip-and-grin” photos with Biden in the Oval Office, a cherished souvenir for any visitor wanting to showcase his good standing with the American president.
Other photos taken, though, proved trickier for Biden.
He took a break from the summit to watch Morocco play France in the World Cup semifinal with a handful of African leaders Wednesday. But when a photo emerged on social media that showed Biden sitting alongside Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, watching the game, it caused a furor among Ethiopians.
Supporters took the image, which was posted on Twitter by Ethiopia’s national security adviser, as a sign that Abiy was finally back in Biden’s good books, 15 months after the United States threatened sanctions against the Ethiopian government over its conduct in the country’s ruinous civil war. But Abiy’s critics, including hundreds of Ethiopians gathered behind barricades outside the summit hall, yelling slogans against him, took it as a betrayal.
“It really broke my heart,” said Eden Kassa, a protester from the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia. “How messed up is it for Biden to sit with a person like this? Maybe this is what presidents do.”
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the encounter had occurred at a casual gathering where leaders were milling around the room. The United States urges further implementation of a deal to end hostilities in Ethiopia, including the withdrawal of Eritrean troops, disarmament of Tigrayan forces and access for international human rights monitors, she added.
For the Americans, the summit was not about choosing favorites or singling out abusers. All countries in good standing with the African Union, with the exception of Eritrea, were invited. Instead, the Biden administration stressed its commitment to partnership — a marked change in the tone of Washington’s relationship with the continent after President Donald Trump’s administration — and their belief that Africa will play a crucial role in changes that will reshape the global order.
“How we tackle these challenges, in my view, will determine the direction the entire world takes in the decades to come,” Biden told his guests Thursday.
“African voices, African leadership, African innovation all are critical to addressing the most pressing global challenges and to realizing the vision we all share: a world that is free, a world that is open, prosperous and secure.”
Analysts said that for the summit to succeed in its stated goal of showing that the United States is “all in on Africa,” it should take place every three years, as happens in China.
At a coffee shop a few blocks south of the summit hall, Florindo Chivcute, an anti-corruption campaigner from Angola, said he understood America’s rationale for holding it now. “The U.S. has fallen behind on the continent,” he said. “Russia and China are three steps ahead. It needs to catch up, fast.”
U.S. businesses are preferred in Africa, Chivcute said. Strict U.S. laws mean that American companies are more transparent than Chinese ones, which often pay kickbacks and deliver shoddy work. Some Chinese-built roads in Angola completed just five years ago are already crumbling, he said.
But when asked what the summit would mean to ordinary Angolans, he hesitated. “I’m not sure how it will translate for them,” he said.