Background Press Gaggle on President Biden’s Meeting with President Lourenço of Angola

Luanda, Angola

MODERATOR: All right, well, thanks, everyone. So, we're going to do this gaggle on background, attributable to a senior administration official.

For your awareness, but not for your reporting, this is [senior administration official]. And by all means, feel free to share this audio with the pool.

[Senior administration official] will share a few words at the top on how the bilat went and answer questions.

Q Any embargo?

MODERATOR: No embargo.

All right, over to you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Okay, great, yeah. So it was a really warm and substantive conversation that President Lourenço and President Biden had, along with their teams. On both sides, it was a really substantive delegation and substantive set of points.

So, I'll just say on the U.S. side, as you all may know, in addition to President Biden and the national security team, we also had the head of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency; the Millennium Challenge Corporation; the DFC, Development Finance Corporation - which kind of shows you how deep this partnership with Angola has become.

And the partnership with Angola was basically the theme. President Biden started off talking about how this is a really transformed partnership over the last certainly centuries, but particularly the last three years. So when you think about - this is a relationship that began in slavery, which President Biden has called the original sin of the United States; then went through the Cold War, when we were mostly on opposing sides. But then, since President Lourenço took office, and since President Biden took office four years ago, it has really become a deep partnership and a really warm one. So, President Biden and President Lourenço both reflected a lot on how far we've come on that.

Then, I would say the core of the conversation was on how that partnership is being manifested in the Lobito Corridor. The Lobito Corridor, as you probably know by now, is a massive and really ambitious investment that the United States is partnering with other both external stakeholders as well as regional countries on. We've invested upwards of $3 billion in it thus far. More to come.

But the important thing - and this is something that President Biden talked about - is it is not just about infrastructure, it is about people, were his exact words. And it's about people, it's about the communities that it will touch. It's about investing in a responsible and sustainable way, ensuring there's inclusive economic growth, including that there is contracting that is transparent and not corrupt.

So, President Biden talked a lot about what he sees. He loves trains, and he did say, "I'm a train guy, and I love trains," but he did talk about how that works in the favor of people and communities as well.

As you likely know by now, President Biden and President Lourenço will have a chance to go see the Lobito Corridor in person tomorrow, probably along with many of you. They will also be co-hosting regional leaders, so the leaders of Zambia, DRC, and Tanzania. It'll be the vice president of Tanzania and the president of the other two. So it was sort of a preview of the conversation tomorrow where the presidents will be able to sort of see what's been in action, lift up what the G7 has done in support of Lobito, and how it reflects the AU's vision as well. So that was huge area of focus.

Other issues they discussed included global issues such as democracy - how democracy takes constant work; democracy is always fragile is something President Biden said.

They talked a lot about regional issues. President Lourenço has taken a really helpful leadership role in mediating the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. President Biden thanked him for that work. They talked about the way forward on that, but President Lourenço shared his perspective.

We talked about President Lourenço's forthcoming chairmanship of the AU, which will start next year, and his helpful role in that regard.

Touched upon other regional and global issues, and then sort of finished off with just a reflection again of how far the partnership has come.

So, happy to take any questions.

Q All right, first of all, can you share with us any details of this meeting that the President had with the descendant of one of the original slaves? Or however you word that.

And then, Angola's UNITA Party said today that the President missed a, quote, "great opportunity" to learn more about civil society, to interface with civil society and talk about human rights issues. What's your response to that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, so on the descendant of slavery you mentioned, so this is the Tucker family. So Wanda Tucker and then two of her other family members are here as well. And these are descendants of the original shipment of slaves who came over, I think around 1619. They will be at the President's remarks later this afternoon as well.

The President met with Wanda, at least last night - I'm not sure if the other two or not - and he obviously takes this story very personally in terms of the personal manifestation of it.

But, yeah, the William Tucker Society has been a really important voice on sort of telling that story of the relationship.

On civil society: So, the President's delegation has already met with civil society and youth leaders. We also know civil society is not monolithic, so getting lots of voices. The President will meet with other representatives from civil society. So this is - you know, democracy and governance issues came up and are certainly something that I'd say our President did not miss an opportunity to talk about.

MODERATOR: Trevor?

Q Two, kind of, related ones. I thought it was kind of interesting that Lourenço, in his opening remarks, brought up security and cooperation. Directionally, where is that headed? Is that headed towards a deeper, you know, alliance, partnership? Where is that headed?

And then, you mentioned other regional issues and global issues. Did China come up at all?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: China didn't come up.

On security cooperation: Yeah, this is a really exciting, I'd say burgeoning area of cooperation that's particularly picked up steam over the last couple of years. Secretary Austin was here about a year ago, I believe sometime in 2023. There have been other visits on this. And just in the last few weeks, we have initiated the State Partnership Program, which we're looking forward to deepening with the Angolans.

So, I do think this is an area of burgeoning cooperation, I would say. It's obviously a relatively new area.

Q And then, did - sorry - did Russia come up at all?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No.

Q Thanks so much for doing this. During -

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Oh, I'm so sorry, let me correct myself. Russia came up briefly in the sense that there's a concern of, with the war in Ukraine, there may be arms that will end up in the African continent, and that represents, you know, a risk security wise.

The President also did thank President Lourenço for his principled stand on Ukraine.

Q Thanks for doing this. Did Biden bring up any new investments that could be going to the Lobito Corridor in terms of just new funding? Or did that come up? I know there's been talk that there would be some deliverables, but was that mentioned at all during the meeting? Or -

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The President's remarks on Lobito were much more, sort of, the principle behind it, what we're trying to demonstrate by Lobito. But there are some investments and announcements that are coming out. I'm not sure if they're out yet, so I'll defer you to [senior administration official], who I think is speaking with you all later on Lobito.

Q Okay. And then, just one more. President Lourenço brought up - during his remarks, he touched on, you know, how he would like to see more engagement from U.S. investors. Was there any more conversation around, you know, like U.S. companies coming to Angola and Africa more broadly? What, kind of, was touched on there, if anything?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah. Absolutely. This is part of, I think, what the President has pushed forward on Lobito. And more broadly, under President Biden in general, there's been a record number of Cabinet officials who have come to Africa, who often bring with them, sort of, the commercial diplomacy aspect as well.

Tomorrow, at the Lobito Corridor Summit, there will be companies there who will be speaking about their investment. So this is definitely, I would say, front and center of how they're thinking about it.

Q Just one more. Sorry. Did President-elect Trump come up during the meeting?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. President Lourenço didn't raise it. Obviously, all these conversations we have are in the context of there is a transition coming. Fortunately, Africa policy has long been bipartisan. So, while we obviously can't predict what the new team will do, we've seen a lot of support for investment projects from the other side. And we've heard good support from both sides of the aisle in terms of supporting Angola's leadership on eastern DRC.

So that would - I would say it was the only way it was even tangentially talked about.

Q The media was asking questions about the pardon, and then Biden didn't answer them, but he made a joke about "and welcome to America." Just wondering, (inaudible) -

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It didn't come up. Actually, it didn't.

Q They didn't -

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There was mention, no.

Q I figured that was the case.

Q I was wondering whether you could elaborate a bit on this, on what you just said about Russia and how it could lead to more, like, arms coming into Africa. And where exactly - have you seen proof of it already? You know, that kind of thing.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It was actually a pretty brief comment in the context of overall the security environment. So it wasn't - I actually can't elaborate because that was as far as it went.

Q And on the DRC, like, anything more you can share?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So, on the DRC - so you're likely tracking President Lourenço has led the Luanda Process, which we really commend him for. That's been a partnership with Avril Haines, our Director of National Intelligence. President Lourenço, you know, continues to play a pretty strong role. The op tempo of those meetings has increased. We had two ministerials in the last 10 days on that. There's been a head of state level meeting announced now for mid-December, so there's some discussion of that.

Overall, you know, what President Biden conveyed on that was, first, like, "Thank you, President Lourenço," and then, second, that he has - President Biden has heard bipartisan support for the mediation efforts. And, you know, the conflict in eastern DRC benefits no one. Potential investors, the human cost. So, President Biden basically expressed that he hopes that the partnership on mediating that will continue.

Q Is the investment, like, in the Lobito Corridor or any of the other public health or energy investments, are any of those contingent on the next administration continuing to disburse the money, or is the money already there?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I defer you to the Lobito Corridor gurus because I don't want to give you bad -

MODERATOR: Yeah, I think we're trying to work a briefing for [senior administration official] later today, maybe after the speech, just to preview Lobito and everything.

Q Okay. But just in terms of how Trump only adjacently came up, like not directly came up, because of the context of the transition - was that because there was any concern about whether this work would continue or (inaudible)?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I mean, I think it's just we don't want to speak for the next administration. We don't know what choices they'll make. But I'll say, you know, there's a lot of private sector energy already. There's a lot of other stakeholders. This isn't a U.S.-exclusively endeavor. It's a G7 endeavor, Africa Finance Corporation, AFDB - development bank. So there's a lot of other players as well, but I think we'll hear more tomorrow on that.

MODERATOR: Thank you all. Hope this was helpful.

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