U.S. President Joe Biden got a firsthand look Wednesday at a U.S.-financed rail project that weaves together his personal love of railroads with his desire to leave a legacy in Africa that will outlive his administration.
The Lobito Corridor is a 1,300-kilometer rail line stretching from copper-rich Zambia to the port of Lobito in the southwest nation of Angola. The railway is meant to form a “strategic economic corridor” under the Biden administration’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, an initiative meant to counter China’s well-established, sprawling Belt and Road Initiative. So far, the Biden administration says it has committed nearly $4 billion toward the project.
In Angola’s capital, Luanda, on Tuesday, Biden cast the project through his love of passenger rail. As a U.S. senator, he commuted frequently to Washington from Wilmington, Delaware — logging nearly 340 kilometers on every trip, he said.
“I must tell you up front with American press here, I’m probably the most pro-rail guy in America,” Biden said to laughter from the audience gathered to hear him speak at the nation’s slavery museum.
On Wednesday, he toured the Lobito Port terminal and met with Angolan President Joao Lourenco, Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and Tanzanian Vice President Philip Mpango.
During a visit to a food processing factory, Biden noted the importance of the Lobito Corridor in exporting resources, as well as regional integration and development.
"We're at one of those transition points in world history," the U.S. president said, noting the railway will reduce travel time across Africa.
"All these projects and investments are designed to have high impact,” he said.
Biden announced the United States will invest $600 million more to upgrade the railway and further develop the Lobito Corridor.
"The United States understands that how we invest in Africa is just as important as how much we invest in Africa,” he said.
Same or different?
Senior administration officials said this rail line will, by the end of the decade, be extended to its full length, stretching from Africa’s Indian Ocean coast to the Atlantic port. Initially, it will transport critical minerals such as cobalt and copper from the continent’s deep interior to the coast. When the corridor is completed, a journey that now takes more than 40 days by road can zip across the continent in 40 hours.
“The premise behind the corridor is to be able to take American support and financial capabilities that are limited, and to focus them more deeply in one area, versus spreading that financial support and effort across many countries,” said a senior Biden administration official, who was not identified as is common practice when briefing reporters.
VOA asked the official whether this repeats the colonial narrative of exploiting the continent’s rich, raw resources while not adding value and providing steady work for local populations. A burgeoning youth population on the continent has created an urgent need for jobs, putting strain on many African governments.
“I disagree with the premise that this is for raw products,” the official replied. “Right now, only raw product is coming out. But I think what this rail does — in order to get to higher-value products, you need a few things. One of them is affordable and reliable and abundant energy. So the build out of the energy system allows you to then build the value added.”
Others questioned whether this U.S. effort, coming more than a decade after China launched its ambitious Belt and Road initiative, can compete.
“Upon closer inspection, it appears to be a mimic of China’s playbook, one that tacitly acknowledges that Washington lags behind Beijing in terms of its investments in Africa but does little to fill the void that exists in China’s footprint,” said Chris O. Ogunmodede, an editor, consultant and analyst of African politics, security and international relations.
Wang Peng, a researcher at Renmin University of China, published on a Chinese state thinktank, International Cooperation Center, that Western international projects like the Lobito Corridor don’t pose a challenge to China’s initiative because the United States “can’t provide sufficient funds and material conditions to truly implement its ambitious global infrastructure plan.”
Wang Peng also noted the U.S. could undermine it by exerting "diplomatic pressure on host countries to force them to tear up cooperation agreements with China; exaggerate the negative impact of the 'Belt and Road' project on the local ecological environment and water resources … and hype up the so-called 'debt trap' issue."
Mounting Chinese debt among African nations is something Biden also mentioned indirectly in his remarks Tuesday, in seeking to cast the U.S. as a reliable partner.
“We’ve also pushed to ensure that developing nations do not have to choose between paying down unsustainable debt and being able to invest in their own people,” he said.
But, as Biden also said, his time is running short as he prepares to leave office. Analysts say this project may be well-received by President-elect Donald Trump, as it suits his more transactional approach to the continent and appeals to one of Trump’s biggest backers, billionaire Elon Musk.
“The money has been earmarked already after all,” said James Murphy of Clark University in Massachusetts. “Continuing the Lobito project is a smart idea — Trump does not have to own it except in the sense that it gives him a talking point about our strategic/resource-driven interests in Africa, particularly as a strategy to acquire minerals essential for Elon’s Teslas, as it were.”
Paris Huang contributed to this report.
