Digital Press Briefing: President Biden’s Visit to Angola

Audio - Digital Press Briefing: President Biden's Visit to Angola

MODERATOR: Good afternoon to everyone from the U.S. Department of State's Africa Regional Media Hub. I welcome our participants logging in from across the continent and thank all of you for joining us. Today, we are very pleased to be joined by Dr. Frances Brown, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, and Helaina R. Matza, Acting Special Coordinator for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI) at the U.S. Department of State.

Our speakers will preview President Biden's December 2nd through 4th visit to Angola and will highlight how this visit builds on his bilateral meeting with President Lourenço in November 2023, the U.S.-Africa Leaders' Summit in December 2022, and President Lourenço's visit to the United States in 2021. The visit underscores the United States' continued commitment to African partners, including developing on - delivering on commercial infrastructure investment across the region and how collaborating to solve shared challenges delivers for the people of the United States and people across the African continent.

We will begin today's briefing with opening remarks from Dr. Frances Brown and Acting Special Coordinator Matza, then we will turn to your questions. We will try to get to as many of your questions as we can during the briefing.

And with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Frances Brown and Acting Special Coordinator Matza for their opening remarks.

DR BROWN: Great, thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here with all of you. I'll just briefly kick it off and then I'll turn it over to Helaina as well.

So by now you have all heard President Biden is traveling to Angola. We are excited about this trip, and most importantly, President Biden is excited about this trip. So I'll provide a few thoughts on how the trip fits into the administration's approach to Africa that we've put forward over the past four years, then I'll speak a little bit more specifically on the trip plans before turning it over to Helaina, who will cover the PGI components.

So as many of you may know, earlier in this administration, the Biden-Harris administration, released a U.S. Africa Strategy. That strategy talks about how it's impossible to meet this era's defining challenges without African contributions and leadership. President Biden also often talks about building relationships with African countries that rise to meet the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century together. So you will hear a lot about those themes throughout the visit.

I imagine a lot of you followed the Africa Leaders' Summit which occurred at the end of 2022. At that summit, we - the U.S. - pledged to invest $55 billion- with a B- in Africa over three years. We are over-delivering on that thus far. Two years later, we've spent - we've invested more than 80 percent of that commitment. And these are historic investments that have strengthened our ties and created real economic opportunities for communities across the continent.

There's other ways that this fits into the Biden administration's approach to Africa. You may know that the U.S. has championed African leadership across multilateral fora, including for advocating for new seats to be added to the G20, to the UN Security Council, to international financial institution boards. You may also be tracking that we've had a record amount of senior-level official travel to the continent even prior to President Biden. More than 20 cabinet members and leaders of U.S. departments and agencies have visited the region just in the last two years.

So more and more, the security of our - and prosperity of the U.S. is tied to that of our African parties - partners, and this trip is a recognition of that.

So that's the overall framing, and now a little bit about why Angola. How did President Biden choose Angola?

So we see Angola as a strategic partner and a regional leader. Our relationship with Angola has completely transformed over the past 30 years, and that transformation has really picked up pace over the last three years.

In 2023, U.S.-Angola trade totaled approximately $1.77 billion, which makes Angola our fourth-largest trade partner in Sub-Saharan Africa.

We're also working with Angola to address a range of pressing challenges, including bolstering peace and security in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, growing economic opportunities in the region, and expanding technological and scientific cooperation.

As was noted at the top, this visit builds on President Biden's bilateral meeting with President Lourenço almost exactly a year ago this month, as well as the second U.S.-Africa Leaders' Summit which occurred in December 2022, and President Lourenço's own visit here to the U.S. in 2021.

We have three primary goals of the trip. One is to lift up U.S. leadership on trade, investment, and infrastructure in Africa - and Helaina will tell you much more about that. Number two is to highlight Angola's regional leadership and global partnership on a full spectrum of pressing issues, including trade, security, and health. And lastly, to highlight that remarkable evolution of the U.S.-Angola relationship.

So a little bit on the major components of the visit that we're tracking. I cannot get in front of the President and tell you the full schedule, but I will give you some highlights. So during his visit, President Biden will meet bilaterally with President Lourenço to further conversations on infrastructure, climate, regional peace security - peace and security, the constant work of deepening democracy, and economic shared goals.

President Biden will also deliver public remarks on the U.S.-Angola relationship as well as the Biden administration's approach to Africa. He'll do this in front of a really remarkable and meaningful background that I'm - and I'm really looking forward to these remarks. I think they'll be a nice - a nice marker as the President comes to the end of his own time on - in the presidency.

President Biden will also focus on highlighting one of his signature initiatives, the investment of the Lobito Corridor. Many of you will know that Lobito Corridor is a regionally led effort that the U.S. along with European and private-sector partners have supported through strategic investments. Helaina and our PGI - Helaina and our PGI team will have more to say about that.

But what I'll share is that from my perspective, what I found really notable about the Lobito Corridor is that it isn't just about a railroad or critical minerals. It's also about the communities that are strengthened along the way, it's about more access to education, it's about agricultural products moving to market, and it's about increases in digital connectivity. These investments are being made through transparent, open, and competitive procurement processes.

While President Biden is on the ground, he and his delegation will also spend time with Angolan stakeholders who are making real differences in their communities and for the Angolan people.

As you may know, with many trips come major deliverables and announcements. Here I can't get ahead of the President either, but I think we can expect that the President will focus on amplifying several areas of partnership with Angola.

One set of announcements will be on Lobito. As you could imagine, the President - since we've already mobilized billions of dollars towards Lobito to date, you can imagine that the President will engage with various components of this infrastructure effort and lift those up.

Another set of announcements that you'll hear more about will have to do with the major Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact that was recently signed for Zambia that complements the broader agricultural and rail investments in Lobito. And that was recently signed in Lusaka but you'll hear more about that in the President's - the President's trip.

I think you can also expect some other deliverables related to global health security and partnership there. You can expect some other deliverables related to food security and agribusiness. You can look for an important announcement on security sector cooperation, and you can look for another announcement on - or other announcements on preserving Angola's rich cultural heritage.

More broadly, I think President Biden will focus on bolstering U.S. economic partnerships that keep our companies competitive and defend workers, strengthening transparency and civic engagement, intensifying action on climate security, and enhancing peace and security. So more to come on all those fronts.

So I've laid down a lot for you. I want to make sure we get to questions. But just to close, I started on this theme of partnership and underscoring the evolution of the U.S.-Angola relationship, and I would just say that over the past few years we've accomplished much together and I am excited to look forward to that - that relationship and see where it goes in the future.

So with that, I will leave you. Over to Helaina, please.

MS MATZA: Thanks, Frances, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us today. As Frances laid out, President Biden's trip to Angola will highlight many important themes to our bilateral relationship and our broader approach to the continent, one of those really being the evolving approach to economic partnerships and growth on the continent, which we think is really highlighted very well through the work we're doing on the Lobito Corridor, which is part of the U.S. and G7's broader approach through something called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.

I know many of you that's been covering the administration's work on the continent have some familiarity with the initiative, but as a reminder, this is a joint effort from G7 countries plus additional partners to drive investment to close the infrastructure gap in growth markets around the world. We have a collective commitment for global support among the G7 countries of $600 billion and over - through 2027, and a good chunk of our initial work has really been focused on what we're doing on the continent in particular from the U.S. perspective.

So the idea of the initiative and our broader approach to the Lobito Corridor is to not only close that infrastructure gap in the most innovative way but to provide sustainable solutions that drive economic growth, really enhance regional connectivity, and promote prosperity, and doing that through real, tangible investments in the critical infrastructure that is ultimately the foundation that drives that growth.

So as Frances also said, the Lobito Corridor really started as a commitment among the countries in the region - Angola, DRC, and Zambia - and when the United States, our European partners, and many of the African financing community came together to determine how we can support that work, it was really along the vision of using the corridor to connect Angola, DRC, Zambia (inaudible) across multiple sectors. So that didn't just include the anchor rail investments, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about today on the call, but huge, once-in-a-generation investments in clean energy, in agriculture, really bringing all of the tools that we have as the U.S. Government and with our partners to the table. And Angola has been one of the strongest partners and really sort of the beachhead for those initial investments for the United States on to the corridor.

The reason why the rail investments are so important to this initiative is because they really serve as the anchor that allows so much of the other work that we're seeing both happening driven by the private sector and through this partnership. These rail investments cut transportation costs, they reduce inland shipping times, and they open access to arable agricultural land and bolster the supply chain for critical energy minerals, driving climate-resilient economic growth in the region.

The first phase of the work that we did, which we started about 18 months ago or a little closer to two years now, includes DFC, our Development Finance Corporation's support for the Lobito Atlantic Railway and their upgrade on the existing rail from the Port of Lobito across Angola to the DRC.

This work, once the United States and our other partners joined, has now been governed by a seven-sided MOU which we just signed over a year ago. And through this agreement, the United States is working with our partners, with Angola really being an important member of that effort, to advance the second phase of this project, which will be 800 kilometers of greenfield rail starting in Angola off of the initial rail that is already being refurbished and continuing to cut all across Zambia, creating a new route and connectivity that brings us a little closer to the east.

Just a few highlights. This project has moved really quickly, and over the course of the last 18 months we've been able to mobilize almost $5 billion in investment across multiple sectors. We were delighted in September at the UN General Assembly with the support of Secretary Blinken and other members of our cabinet to celebrate some really important milestones that we know this trip that President Biden will be taking will not only further codify but move down the line.

And as Frances said, we will try not to get ahead of our President with new deliverables, but just a couple months ago we were able to announce the completion of the feasibility study for the greenfield rail which was a quick, less-than-a-year, but really thorough feasibility study that has been done with several partners, including our anchor partner, which is AFC, the African Finance Corporation. AFC also signed a concession agreement with Angola and Zambia, and the U.S. provided initial funding through our U.S. Trade and Development Agency to do the environment and social assessment.

So in just less than a year of announcing we would do this work we moved forward with several really important elements that will allow us to look at this project not just as a partnership between governments but a project that will bring real commercial investors, the types of investments that Angola and our other partners are asking for, and we're working with to develop the climate to allow for those to really take hold.

So these steps really reaffirm our commitment to delivering infrastructure that we think meets the highest international standards with even more progress being made as we're going into the President's visit in just a little over a week.

But as Frances also mentioned, beyond transportation, PGI is really supporting layered investments that amplify the impact of that infrastructure. So not only have we mobilized this kind of larger $5 billion number; a lot of that is broken up between investments in new clean energy projects, including solar, microgrid, and support for desalination efforts - many of these happening in Angola in particular.

But across the whole corridor new investments in agribusiness and support to companies that are trying to expand production capacity for local food markets. We've been investing in opportunities all along the corridor for mobile money and banking programs to help support smallholder farmers' products to reach market, as well as working across the whole digital ecosystem to offer more 5G services from Angola beyond, into the corridor, working with trusted vendors.

So we deeply believe that this - that President Biden's trip to Angola really marks a historic opportunity not only to highlight the progress of the PGI initiatives to date and what we've done as a group to bring so many key stakeholders to maintain momentum to the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, but also to demonstrate that this is a model that we believe can be replicated and is really partner-driven and something that we've been really delighted to be a part in really shaping and bringing to life.

So with that I will turn it back over to the moderator so we can jump into some questions.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown and Coordinator Matza. So we will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today's briefing.

So our first question will go to Angolan National Radio, and the question - and I think, Coordinator Matza, this would be a good question for you: "What specific infrastructure investment projects will President Biden's visit prioritize in Angola? And how do these align with Angola's current economic development goals?"

MS MATZA: Thank you so much for the question, and I think that President Biden's visit is really going to highlight two big themes of what this project has been. One is that this is a true partnership model that's driven by the priorities of our Angolan but in this case also Zambia and DRC partner countries and their desire to leverage infrastructure, new infrastructure, to not only connect them more to global markets but to improve regional connectivity. And that's really been the driver of how we've looked at investment opportunities, those that we've helped directly finance or provide some de-risking tools to bring on private partners.

And so I think you'll see the President's visit try to highlight that in several meaningful ways, including the work that we've done to date both on the rail refurbishment on the Benguela rail line that connects Lobito to DRC, which is being supported by over a $550 million direct loan provided by the Development Finance Corporation to refurbish that 1,300 kilometers of greenfield rail, but also highlighting the project that we're really right in the middle of, which is a - for us - once-in-a-generation investment into the continent in developing jointly with the Angolans, with our African partners, and with African finance a 800-kilometer greenfield rail project. That project is really special because it's designed as a true public-private partnership where we've been able to provide some concessional support to AFC directly again through another loan project, but ultimately use this private partner to work directly with the Angolans with the Zambians in this case, to develop a mechanism to get this project off the ground and moving so quickly.

But as I mentioned, the rail is really just a piece of this. So I think you will see during the visit a real highlight of amazing work that's happened across all the other sectors, including the 200 - or excuse me, $2.5 billion of investment and support that EXIM has provided mostly in Angola to date, but we hope will continue to spread throughout the country - or excuse me, across the three countries on the largest clean energy investment the United States has made on the continent, which includes, as I mentioned before, solar deployment, microgrid deployment, and desalination projects. These are further supported by other U.S. tools through Power Africa and USAID that are working on additional electrification and connectivity to partner countries as these new projects come on board.

But once again, we will be highlighting so many different elements of this investment from the work that we've been doing on rural bridges, to provide 180 prefabricated bridges, enhancing connectivity across Angola and beyond, as well as the work that we're doing in the digital space with partners like Africell, expanding their mobile money programs.

So while I anticipate we will see some new announcements and deliverables, I think they will all build off of these really strong foundational initial investments that we want to see grow and continue to bolster other industries that we think are really enhanced through this connected infrastructure when we are talking about two rail lines that will ultimately bring down the transit time that we're seeing across those three countries from 45 days to a fraction of that time, to less than a week. What that can do for agribusiness I think is absolutely astronomical.

And what we're seeing is a lot of not only public investments but private investments moving in that space, so I imagine that that will be a theme that we will carry on through the President's trip and, most importantly, beyond going into the future of this project.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you very much, Coordinator Matza. I see that Julian Pecquet of Jeune Afrique has his hand raised. I wonder if we can open Julian's mike.

QUESTION: Hi, can you hear me?

MODERATOR: We hear you.

QUESTION: Great. Thank you so much. Thanks for holding the call. I have two quick questions. One is for Dr. Brown, the other for Coordinator Matza. The first one to Dr. Brown: I imagine you saw, but Amnesty International put out a report on impunity for police killings over the past three years. With President Biden holding two democracy summits, I'm wondering - and now we're transitioning to a new president who doesn't prioritize such things. I'm wondering if the democracy agenda, human rights, are expected to come up during this trip, what you intend to talk to President Lourenço on that, or whether we've moved beyond that at this point.

And then for Coordinator Matza, we're hearing from a lot of other countries in Africa that they really want to benefit from the Lobito Corridor - South Africa, Burundi; there's a lot of places that have mining interests that are really looking forward to this and seeing if they can benefit. I'm wondering if there - you can talk about any sort of plans to expand beyond the three countries that you mentioned and sort of use the Lobito Corridor as a template to help with mining and development across the continent. Thanks.

DR BROWN: Thanks, Julian. This is Frances. I'll weigh in quickly and then turn it to Helaina. So you're right, President Biden has made democracy a centerpiece of his administration, and I can tell you he does not shy away from talking with counterparts about how democracy takes constant work and takes constant tending, and that's something he's - he has stressed in every - every meeting he has with counterparts that's something that comes up. So without getting ahead of what he's going to talk about, I think you've seen that theme throughout the Biden administration and I don't see a reason that he would stop now on that.

Helaina, over to you.

MS MATZA: Thanks so much, Frances. And Julian, really important question. And so the way that we're looking at these investments in the Lobito Corridor is that they should ultimately benefit so much more of Africa, because even though the infrastructure is now primarily focused on physically connecting three countries, the implication of that enhanced regional connectivity should have knock-on effects of reducing trade costs, strengthening supply chains, which are goals that we've heard from other African leaders that want to be involved in this project and have a closer relationship with the United States and our partners that look a little bit more like this, that is really (inaudible) in investment and in infrastructure support.

But most importantly, we wanted to demonstrate a model, right, and the goal, right, is that this model of investment where you take a more focused approach, really work with your partners both on the side of the countries that are requesting that infrastructure support as well as some of the other financing partners, and say this is a model that works, that we can kind of rinse and repeat and look at other important corridors that can benefit from sustainable infrastructure development that really fosters cooperation through open access rail networks.

So the idea of the Lobito network is to be a competitive open access not only network of rail users, but so it could connect with other projects on the continent, and really taking a nod from two things: one, a grown-on-the-continent view on regional connectivity through the Agenda 2063 project, and what we're learning from other successful corridors that are covering other parts of the continent like the Central Corridor.

So I think that as we demonstrate that this model can work and that we can bring private partners alongside us to the table at a faster pace than we maybe traditionally have been able to, I don't see any issue. I think the objective is - and as the President has said from day one - not only to continue to the Indian Ocean. We didn't pick one route; we think that could be multiple routes. And so as some of the partners you mentioned, Julian, whether that's South Africa or thinking about some of the other transit routes that are being developed through Namibia, we hope over time this will be a pretty resilient network that benefits with Lobito being an important portion of it but certainly not the exclusive set of investments on the continent.

MODERATOR: Okay. Well, thank you very much to our participants. We are running very short of time. They've got other commitments to get to. I think maybe if I could just sneak in one question before we finish, and to save some time I'm just going to read this from Pearl Matibe of Premium Times in Nigeria: "How does the U.S. plan to use infrastructure investments such as Lobito Corridor to counterbalance the rising influence of other powers like China, Russia, Türkiye, and others, amid concerns about economic dependency shaping political alliances? And to what extent does Angola support U.S. efforts to maintain a rules-based global order?" So that can be our final question if you don't mind.

DR BROWN: I can start on that. So I would say this approach is not about forcing countries to choose but rather giving them a choice and the ability to make their own sovereign decisions, which is something President Biden has been really consistent on throughout. We believe that the value proposition we offer from the U.S. side on trade investment but also partnership - people-to-people ties - demonstrate the value of partnership with the U.S. for both Angola and the Angolan people, and more broadly, we think this pertains to other African counterparts as well. We think our actions speak for themselves. We act in common purpose to advance shared interests and values and to address issues that are, I think, real problems for African counterparts like untrusted digital infrastructure, forced labor, illegal and unregulated fishing. So that's, I think, how we from the Biden administration see it.

Helaina, is there anything you would add from the PGI perspective?

MS MATZA: Well, I'm sure you're not surprised the PGI perspective is reflective of that broader view, which is that these are strong partnerships that we wanted to boost a bigger economic tie with. And anytime we talk to the Angolans or other partners on the continent, it's clear that they also know more choices, more options mean that they can demand more and better quality investment. That's kind of the rules of competition. And so it's been really important for us to figure out how we translate a long-standing economic policy to create choices for our partners around the world and on the continent and to create a race to the top on those investments by making it a little easier for those choices to come to market and be available.

And so that's really the theory of the case, and our objective is to make that process move as quickly but as diligently as possible so our partners do have that choice to pick what's ultimately best for them and ultimately that serves us all because more resiliency and foreign direct investment is always a good thing.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much for those answers. So I know that our participants here are very short of time and have other commitments. I'd like to offer them one last opportunity if they have any final words to share with us.

DR BROWN: This is Frances. My only final word is stay tuned throughout the visit for - when we can actually announce some of these specific deliverables. We're really excited about the trip, and we're really grateful that you all are covering it.

MS MATZA: Thanks, Frances. On top of you, I would just say ditto: We're so delighted that the Lobito Corridor will be part of a very robust trip that will highlight many important elements of our bilateral relationship with Africa and our view on the continent. So please continue to pay attention. I think you'll see not just more deliverables being announced, but a real theme of partnership and also African-led priorities coming to life. So really looking forward to it.

MODERATOR: All right. Fantastic. I want to thank both of our speakers today, Dr. Frances Brown and Acting Special Coordinator Matza, for their time. And I want to also thank the journalists who've joined us today. I'm delighted to see such robust interest in the upcoming visit of the President to Angola, and I hope that we can stay in touch with you as you do some reporting on this visit and on the important issues that will be addressed.

We will be producing a recording and a transcript of today's briefing, and we'll distribute it to participating journalists as soon as we have it ready. If you have any questions about today's briefing, please contact the Africa Regional Media Hub at [email protected]. And I would also like to invite everyone to follow us on Twitter, or X, at our handle @AfricaMediaHub. Thank you and have a great day.

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