Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken left a remote African island chain before heading to Ivory Coast on Monday, beginning a four-nation swing to the continent intended to show the Biden administration’s continued interest in Africa amid major Middle East conflicts and Europe.
A cool Atlantic breeze blew across the dusty port in Praia, Cape Verde’s capital, as Mr. Blinken noted that the facility there had been expanded and modernized with nearly $55 million in American aid, making it what he called “a much stronger gateway to Africa for us and so many other countries.” That project was completed more than a decade ago, but more U.S. development funds were on the way, he said.
Although his diplomacy involved a resupply stop en route to the continent, Mr. Blinken’s visit to the tiny island, more than 400 miles off the west coast of Senegal, helped signal US interest in Africa’s well-being. Mr Blinken praised Cape Verde as a model of democracy and stability.
After Cape Verde, Mr Blinken traveled to Ivory Coast, with stops in Nigeria and Angola planned this week. US officials said he would address a range of issues in his stops, including conflict prevention and political stability following military coups in several countries in recent years.
Despite their intense focus on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, Biden administration officials have said they remain intent on strengthening ties with African nations, which hold vast economic potential and are the site of great power competition with China and Russia. Africa is expected to host about a quarter of the world’s population by 2050.
Mr Blinken is making his fourth visit to sub-Saharan Africa as foreign minister. A parade of other top administration officials have also visited the continent in the past year, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and first lady Jill Biden.
But President Biden has yet to follow through on a pledge he made in 2022 to visit the continent, raising doubts about the depth of his commitment – despite Mr Biden saying at a US-Africa leaders’ summit in Washington in December 2022 that America was “all in” for Africa’s future.
Despite the region’s myriad challenges, Biden officials said Mr. Blinken intended to focus on upbeat issues such as economic development and cultural ties. In Ivory Coast, Mr Blinken, a long-time footballer and fan, sat down with the country’s prime minister for an Africa Cup of Nations match, only to witness a heartbreaking defeat that left enraged fans hurling plastic water bottles at the pitch space.
A statement from the department’s spokesman, Matthew Miller, cited “climate, food and health security” as well as “our forward-looking economic cooperation,” including infrastructure investment and trade.
“We think this trip will hopefully be very positive,” Molly Fee, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said on a call with reporters last week. “Many times the news from Africa is negative.”
Frustrated by several frustrating questions about security threats and Chinese influence, she added: “You’re pissing me off because you’re not talking about any of the really fun and positive, forward-looking things that we’re going to do.”
But Ms Phee admitted political stability and regional conflict would loom large during Mr Blinken’s stops in Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Angola. “We can never escape, however, issues of peace and security,” he said.
Africa has also required plenty of crisis management from Biden officials because of a wave of military coups from coast to coast, a brutal civil war in Sudan and violent radicalization in much of the north. US efforts to topple a July coup in Niger, whose president remains under house arrest, and to broker a peaceful resolution in Sudan have reached impasse.
A recent flare-up in tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo was alarming enough that in November the White House sent the director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, Ms. Phee and other senior officials to mediate. Angola also has a mediating role, which Mr Blinken will discuss in its capital, Luanda.
The Biden administration has paid particular attention to Angola. Mr. Austin traveled there in September, becoming the first US defense secretary to visit the country. And Mr. Biden hosted the president of Angola, Joao Lorenzo, in the Oval Office in November.
One reason is that the United States is investing $250 million in a rail corridor that would allow minerals to be transported from landlocked areas of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Lobito, Angola’s Atlantic port, from where they can be shipped to Europe and United States. During Mr. Lourenço’s visit, Mr. Biden called the project “the largest US rail investment in Africa ever.” The corridor helps the United States keep pace with China, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in Angola.
China’s reach extends to Cape Verde, where Mr Blinken’s motorcade drove to a government palace past signs in Chinese reflecting that the complex was built by Beijing.
Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa program at the Wilson Center in Washington, said that in her recent trips to the continent she found confusion about the US agenda there. Africans, he said, clearly understand Russia’s “at times insidious” security interests, which often take the form of mercenary military partnerships with governments. And China’s economic development projects, he said, have created “visible infrastructure that people can actually see and feel.”
“But they are not very clear about what the US is doing,” he said. Biden officials have tried to promote African democracy and condemned military coups in places like Niger and Gabon, he said, while working with authoritarian leaders elsewhere.
“The US talks about strengthening democracy,” Ms Onubogu added. “But at the same time, we have relationships with people who Africans see as not being democratic leaders. So I think we have a message race.”
Despite public alarms from security analysts, Biden officials are responding to persistent questions about how the United States is dealing with China’s massive investments in a continent that increasingly supplies it with oil, minerals and other natural resources. Mr Blinken will arrive in Ivory Coast days after a visit by China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi.
“It’s you guys, frankly, who are calling it a US-China soccer game,” Ms. Phee told reporters last week.
He added: “If it wasn’t for China, we would be fully engaged in Africa. Africa is important for its own sake and it is important to American interests.”