Where's the beef, America?

Analysis of Biden's Only Africa Visit

By Dr. Felix Kumah-Abiwu and Dr. Kariūki wa Gīthuku in The Elephant

Summary by Patrick Kariuki for The Kenyan Observer

President Biden visited Angola and Cabo Verde from 2-4 December 2024, his first presidential trip to sub-Saharan Africa.

The trip was overshadowed by his pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, and political chaos in South Korea. 

The visit highlighted the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, which aims to build the 1344km Lobito railway linking various cobalt, lithium, and copper mines in the DRC-Congo and the copper-belt region of Zambia, to the Angolan port city of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean. 

This project is an American effort to catch up to China's Belt and Road initiative. 

Was Biden's Africa Visit too little, too late?

China is far ahead of the US, having built over 12,000 km of roads and railway tracks across the African continent, in addition to 62 coal and 30 gas power projects. China is also increasingly outpacing the US around the world.

"What is instructive in this skyrocketing Chinese ascendancy in the global economy is not only the obvious consistency and resilience, but also years, if not decades, of a top-notch global strategy that has literally left the West in the dust," write the authors.

The US has failed to develop a unified, long-term strategy for Africa. AGOA doesn't qualify. Grand aspirational promises are not enough.

More structure, less bluster 

It’s about time for seriousness and cooperation from one American president to the next when it comes to the creation of a unified strategy and concerted action in cutting long-term mutually beneficial deals with Africa.

Biden’s decision to replace Trump’s Free Trade Agreement with Kenya with a broader roadmap, a decision that sparked criticism in Nairobi, is a lamentable example of lack of seriousness and cooperation from one president to another.

The President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA) should play a central role in shaping US-Africa relations.

Africa has 1.4 billion people and has the youngest population globally (70% under 30). Africa is the future. Thus, the time for wildly exciting and “grandiose African strategies that are absolutely aspirational” is over. 

As Clinton’s former ambassador Tibor P. Nagy poses, Where’s the beef, America?