Joe Biden recently became the first sitting president to visit Angola, Africa. While there, the president promised more than $1 billion in U.S. assistance, aiming to strengthen relations in the region and combat China's presence there. In this episode, we sit down with an expert on the region to discuss America's shifting focus in Africa and what it might look like in the new Trump administration. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire.
Joining us now to discuss how the U.S. is approaching Africa is the head of Eurasia Group's Africa practice, Amaka Anku Amaka. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. So President Biden just made this first ever presidential trip to Angola and announced over a billion dollars in U.S. aid to that country. The U.S. has made several trips to Africa in recent years, largely to combat China's growing influence in the region. First for our listeners, can you give us some background on China's presence in the region?
Sure, so China has had an Africa policy, a very kind of class strategic policy. I would say since the early 2000s, you can see some of the means about how every Chinese foreign minister, the first trip was always to Africa for 33 years. The strategy was clear. It was an exchange for us getting resources.
In oftentimes it was oil from these African countries will finance large infrastructure governments a lot of it was government government finance and you know Chinese companies some state companies versus African governments I wanted to build bridges roads and we will then also
sell lots of goods and services, but also our, the money that we're financing is effectively being used by thought from us to, you know, build a bridge. So that was a strategy from the African perspectives. And this is kind of where you'll see, we'll get to how I think it has now influenced how the US sees Africa. But from the African perspective,
This was welcome because a lot of the traditional sources of funding, the World Bank, US, Western partners were not financing big ticket infrastructure projects. A lot of funding from the West was going towards more micro healthcare, democracy promotion, education, things like that, and not the things that some governments thought were critical for economic competitiveness.
And what you're describing is called the Belt and Road Initiative. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us?
Yes, it's a part of the Dalton Road Initiative, which is a global initiative that you could argue is a tool for soft influence for China. And often, if you look at all the countries that are part of the Dalton Road Initiative, many of them fell in line with China as one China policy, you know, removed diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. So definitely a tool for soft from policy influence.
Sure. And how are these types of programs going? How is it actually playing out in terms of building infrastructure, et cetera, what they're supposed to be accomplishing? And how do citizens there feel about them? I think it's a mixed bag. When I was in Kenya, for example, for the summer, I took a Chinese finance train from Nairobi to capital to Mombasa, one of the main coastal cities. Every time I took it packed,
lots of people, clearly a very valuable economic connector in the country. But there also criticism that it was very expensive and there are other infrastructure projects that have not been as useful or were never finished.
And there were, in some cases, where there was a lot of leakages, you know, collision between African officials and the Chinese counterparts that just meant that the money was wasted. So I'd say it's a mixed bag. Frankly, like anything else, you know, really big picture the way I see it. In the 2000s, China was the new kid on the blog when it came to Africa.
In the 1960s, the US was a new kid on the block when he came to Africa. It was the new non-colonial power. And both of them made a lot of mistakes when they were the new kid on the block. In the 1960s, the US, it was very controversial. When the US came on the scene in Africa?
Again, you can under block after the colonial era. These new African countries had just won independence. There was a lot of controversy with the US relationships. It was accusations of the US supporting funding crews, assassinating people. Of course, it was in the middle of the Cold War, right? So it was, I feel like there's always that kind of controversy when there is a new block of power. Congratulations.
Obviously, there's a debt involved here with these loans. Do a lot of these countries end up finding themselves in crippling debt? Are they able to actually pay their way out of them? How's that playing out? Good question. So that's something that comes up a lot. So a lot of the Belt and Road projects, yes, involves financing, big infrastructure projects. There's a lot of money. It does mean that there is a lot of debt servicing costs that come along with it.
But the narrative that somehow Africa's debt problem is a Chinese problem is actually misleading. Because if you look at, we look at the numbers a lot here at Eugeo Group. But if you look at the numbers, most debts owed by African countries is not owed to Chinese entities. Most debts owed by African countries is actually owed to multilateral agencies.
and commercial debtors like Euro bonds. People often say China is the biggest bilateral and that that is absolutely true. But that's a very specific manner of categories and most countries do not learn directly. Most Western countries do not hear big loans directly to African countries.
So, of course, China would be the biggest bilateral lender, but other countries like the US, France, and UK, a lot of their funding, their loans, goes through the multilateral agencies, the Britain was agency. So, I think it's an important thing. It's an important kind of caveat to put that it's not the case that most debt owed by these countries is owed to China.
So now the Biden administration is giving one billion in USAID. What is that designated to do? What kinds of stipulations does that come with in terms of how it can be used? Yeah, so my understanding is that a lot of that goes through USAID.
It's about 800 million of it goes through USAID. Some of it is through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Commodity Credit Corporation. So you can think about a lot of the things that USAID funds. A lot of it is healthcare, education, and then there's some community promotion type stuff. So I mean, that's how I would think. I'll be honest with you.
All of these numbers, it's always, it's very hard, even when it's the US numbers, certainly when it's Chinese numbers, when it's Chinese numbers, like you take it with a big grain of salt, because they always have an announced big numbers that, and most of it never materializes. But even when it's the US numbers, it's often very hard to figure out what is a ready existing programs and what is the need. Because they'll always come and announce a coalition of stuff that is already exist, and it's really hard to tell what's actually needed.
Right, there's that political drive to make things seem more generous than they are a lot of times. How do you think the presence of rare earth minerals that we use in many electronics, including semiconductors and EVs? How does that play into both China and the US desire to influence Africa? I think it's extremely important. And if you think about the choice of Angola,
It was a part because of the libita corridor, which is all about access and critical minerals. So absolutely this is an extremely important part of the calculation for both China and the US is securing access to those critical minerals or at least ensuring that access to them is not blocked off by your competitor.
We're about to have a new administration, the Trump administration. Do you see anything changing in regard to what was just promised to Angola as the new administration comes in? Is this the kind of thing that might be reversed or not?
No, so more broadly, Africa policy in the US has been pretty stable across administrations. And if you look, you can draw a line through in all the way from Bush, through Trump. And this is what I mean. So I do think that there is a broader shift happening. So when we started this conversation, you asked me about what's China doing in Africa?
Over the last decade or so, there has been a growing awareness in the U.S. amongst U.S. officials that the failure to center economic transformation in their relationships with African countries, that doesn't not to say that human rights and governance and those things that usually the U.S. led with are not important, they're very important.
But it's really to center what is most critical and what is most of our mind for these African countries, economic transformation, which in their relationships was a mistake, or at least there could be improvement. So there has been a shift.
in terms of centering the relationship on value promotion to trying to center it more on trade and investment. And we've seen that shift to run through both the Democratic and Republican administrations. So that shift has been happening, starting with Obama's power Africa, through Trump's prosper Africa, through Biden's kind of really major focus on the libido corridor.
which is all about trade, which is all about investment and infrastructure, and kind of like taking more of like, you could call it a Chinese approach to infrastructure projects. It's something that both sides agree on. Dealing, what can we get in return? We get critical minerals, you get infrastructure. Fine, let's make a deal. That sounds like something Trump's people will go along with. So all of that to say that I don't see a shift because this is something that both sides can really agree on.
Yeah, it makes sense. What do you think the future of Western nations and G7 nations in Africa is going to look like in the next decade or so?
Ah, that's a really big question. I'm not sure where I, there's so many ways I could go with this, right? Like it, but you know, like the G7 PGI partnership for global infrastructure, I think it's called, which is part of what the Lobeto corridor in Angola is meant to be like a pilot of, right? It's supposed to be a G7 initiative, even though it was something started by Biden.
So that's something we'll keep an eye on. But more broadly, if you've been paying attention, there's a big issue right now in Francophone Africa in terms of anti-French sentiment, because France has been the other major Western country that had significant influence in the region. So I think there's an inflection point here to see how as France is being forced to retreat from Francophone West Africa, Russia is trying to fill that gap.
What does that look like, right? Can the US do more with France not being there? Can France do more in Anglophone African countries? So I think it's a transitional period right now, frankly, I would say. And so there's a lot of moving parts to watch in terms of what the future of the relationship looks like between these countries and G7 member countries.
You brought up Russia. I would like to ask specifically about that. What is Russia's role or influence in the region in Africa in general? Very good question. Look, I think Russia's influence is a lot less than meets the eye. Russia doesn't have a lot to offer to these African countries. When I say a lot, a lot to offer in terms of resource, it's not, they don't have a lot of money. They don't have a lot of resources. Trade between Russia and these African countries is an innocent skill.
But there is, in some cases, a historical relationship that's in particularly South Africa, in the sense that Russia financed the liberation movements there when none of the Western countries were related to. In fact, the Western countries were supporting the minority white appetite regime. So there's a little bit of goodwill, historical goodwill there.
In front of an Africa, it's really more about regime security for non-democraticly elected governments that came to power and can trust their own militaries. I say that to say, I don't see Russia's influence growing over time in any substantial way.
The one area they've been pretty influential and it's just online disinformation. They have been everywhere else in the world. But that's not a path to, in my view, substantive influence on countries. You can destabilize, you can profit in already unstable situations.
right in that way. But that's pretty much it. You hear the ceiling pretty quickly. And that's why in my view, you know, the only place is where you can talk of some form of Russian influence in Africa and at the field states.
And they're also small states, mostly small states that are not where most Africans live, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger. I mean, some of them have a number of people in them, but they're not the most significant countries in the economy, in the region. Final question, from your perspective, what do you think is one of the most important things to keep an eye on in the next couple of years in terms of developments with relationships between the US and Africa?
So yeah, well, I think a little bit philosophical, but I think that the big challenge for the US is to figure out how to center, in my view, state capacity. Make sure at the core, I guess, of what the US's foreign policy tries to convey is our values are better. We want you to look like us. Democracy is good. Don't be like China.
Russia and the rest of them. And most African countries agree with that, but I think that there is a challenge in not just value promoting, but actually putting your money where your mouth is to make sure that those systems deliver concrete public goods to best citizens.
It's not just for bodies, democracy for democracy's sake. It's does it deliver electricity infrastructure, prosperity, jobs, right? Really centering that as well on not just talking about those bodies. And I think that's for me, that's the challenge. And I've seen the shift moving in that direction. And I think that
The US needs to continue moving in that direction and figuring out how to crystallize and bring those two things together better to ensure that people don't give up on the idea of democracy or that they don't decouple that democracy can also bring prosperity. Like we actually have to work hard at making sure that those two things make up. It doesn't happen automatically. Yeah, well, let's hope that we do see that progress. Amaka Anku, thank you so much for talking with us.
Sure, anytime. That was Eurasia Group's Amaka Anku, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire.
