The country spurned China and embraced Washington and Europe to help build a $250 million rail corridor that will funnel cobalt, copper and other critical minerals from Angola and its neighbors, diversifying U.S. supplies of vital raw materials importance for the green revolution. Angolan and U.S. officials hope it will spark a broader economic boom, and the U.S.-backed Export-Import Bank has committed to a $900 million loan for a U.S.-made solar panel project along the rail line, the largest investment of the bank never in it. type of installation in Africa.
Angola’s foreign minister also publicly told his Russian counterpart last year that he was worried about the start of “World War Three” as a result of the war in Ukraine, sharp words for a longtime big supporter.
Biden administration officials say Angola’s warming relationship with Washington is a win for both countries and a model for economic cooperation with nations that have at times felt neglected by the United States or cast as pawns in larger geopolitical maneuvers. They characterize the recovery in Angola as a particularly positive sign of the United States’ appeal as a partner in Africa and throughout the developing world.
“We see the future of America and the future of Africa united,” Blinken said Thursday in the Angolan capital of Luanda, where Atlantic waves lap the shores of a city whose skyscrapers are crammed with pastel remnants of Portuguese colonialism.
The relationship between the United States and Angola “is stronger, it is more important, it is more extensive than at any point in our 30-year friendship,” Blinken said during a four-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa that he made even as the Biden administration handles the crises in Gaza and Ukraine. Angolan President Joao Lorenzo visited Biden in the Oval Office in November.
Biden administration officials dispute the idea that they are engaged in a geopolitical rivalry with China and Russia over Africa, saying that even if those rivals were not active, Washington would be building the same ties on the continent. They say the Cold War-era framework is not a useful way to think about relations and that African countries do not need to face a binary choice between the United States and Beijing or Moscow.
“They want to have a variety of partners, right? They don’t want to be completely dependent on China. And frankly they don’t want to be completely dependent on us,” said one senior administration official, speaking, like others, on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about American diplomacy.
“Our competition with China does not define our relationship with Africa, but it is not separate from it,” the official said. In these meetings, “that’s part of what we do, but it’s an aspect of it.”
Instead, they say, working with the United States can provide jobs for Angolans and Americans, diversify the supply of critical minerals that is too dependent on China, and boost U.S. climate goals by promoting renewable energy projects.
Angola fought a bitter war of independence from Portugal that turned into a 27-year civil war in 1975 after the country rejected colonial rule. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported the ruling government. During the Cold War, Washington supported opposing powers. The conflict has torn the country apart and left the United States deeply suspicious of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who led the country for 38 years before stepping down in 2017. Under his rule, the country was known as one of the most corrupt in Africa .
Resentment with Washington has created fertile ground for countries like China to come in and offer to finance massive infrastructure projects, including a rail line across much of the country to link the Angolan port of Lobito to the resource-rich hinterland. The project was completed in 2012 and was largely built by Chinese workers who flew in for construction and then left. China has lent more money to Angola than to any other country in Africa.
The railway project did not develop as planned. The equipment was faulty and China was slow to fix it. Dos Santos’ chosen successor, Lourenço, opened the door to look beyond the country’s traditional partners.
When Angola began considering expanding the project a decade later, officials rejected a Chinese offer and opted for a 30-year concession to a US-backed consortium to rebuild and expand the lines and operate the rail service. Construction took place last year and the first shipments of minerals crossed Angola this month. The U.S.-made steel for the bridges needed for the rail line has created hundreds of jobs in the United States, project supporters say.
The Angolan and American partners say they eventually want to extend the line, which they have named the Lobito Corridor, eastward to the Indian Ocean. They say it will spark an economic boom in a region that has no roads or railways. Already, European and international investors have piled on top of the US efforts, offering agricultural and industrial projects along the new rail line.
Economic cooperation has deepened ties between the former rivals in Washington and Luanda, as Angolan leaders played a major role in mediating a conflict in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and were more willing to stand up to Moscow and Beijing, including warning Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about World War III.
“It’s mutually reinforcing,” said another senior Biden administration official, describing what the collaboration on infrastructure projects in Angola has enabled. “We have a really deep diplomatic partnership with them that we haven’t had in the past. We are working very seriously with them to deal with the problems in eastern DRC.”
“People want to talk to us, they want us to be involved in helping them solve their problems,” the official said. “And that’s nice. I’m not sure you necessarily see that with some of their outside partners.”
Angolan leaders say they welcome working with the Biden administration.
“All partnerships that can fit our needs and our development policy are welcome,” Angolan Foreign Minister Tete Antonio told reporters after meeting Blinken.
As for his criticism of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, he said “we believe as Angola that the best friends are those who tell the truth,” he said. “We had to warn our friends.”