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With the United States lagging behind China in terms of influence on the continent, the president promised investments in key spaces for development.
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By Peter Baker and Declan Walsh
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Biden sought Wednesday to revitalize America’s apathetic relations with Africa, promising a bag of economic projects to compensate for a predecessor that denigrated the continent and catch up with a strategic competition like China that has expanded its influence.
Bringing top African leaders to Washington for the first time since 2014, Mr. Biden pledged to invest what the estimated aid will amount to $55 billion on the continent over the next 3 years while supporting his ambitions for greater global leadership and bolstering efforts to achieve it. in a more prosperous, clean and technologically complex region.
“The United States is very interested in the long-term of Africa,” Biden said in a speech to delegations from 49 countries attending the U. S. -Africa Leaders’ Summit. Adapting a line he uses to signal national priorities, the president added, “Together, we need to build a long series of opportunities where no one, no one, is left behind. “
The three-day collection can go a long way toward underscoring U. S. support for Africa, with concrete pledges on major issues. At the same time, it didn’t come up with a radical and inspiring initiative like President George W’s PEPFAR program. Bush to fight AIDS or President Barack Obama’s Power Africa crusade to electrify tens of millions of homes. It was unclear whether Biden would have an effect that would be detected and would definitely shape perceptions of the United States.
The United States is widely noted as China’s laggard in Africa’s culture, a geopolitical competition that has expanded in recent years to include powers such as Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated food shortages in Africa while Covid-19 has disrupted chains of origin, multiplying demanding situations in a region that is not lacking in them to begin with.
U. S. influence U. S. Africa decline under S. Biden, Donald J. Trump, who has paid little attention to the continent unless he mocks some of its 54 nations with bad words and complains that after immigrants from Nigeria saw the United States, they never would. “Go back to your huts. ” Mr. Trump spoke of Africa as if the entire continent were one country and once called an African nation.
Without mentioning any of this history, Mr. Biden has sought to show his affection for the region, celebrating the visit of African leaders and their wives at a gala dinner at the White House with Gladys Kevening on Wednesday night and honoring Morocco’s good fortune as the first African country to make the final 4 of the World Cup.
“I know you’re thinking, ‘Be brief, Biden, a semifinal game is coming,'” he joked as he opened his speech just thirteen minutes before game time (Morocco fell to France, 2-0).
Over dinner in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Biden spoke about the most painful history of slavery. “We do not forget the stolen men, women and girls who were brought to our shores in chains, subjected to cruelty. My nation’s original sin was that moment,” he said. His descendants, he added, “helped build this country and propelled it to greater heights, leading the charge, breaking new ground and forging a brighter career for everyone in America. “
During his interactions with African leaders, the president unveiled a series of initiatives, adding an agreement to inspire the formation of a flexible industrial dominance across the continent that has stalled in recent years. adhering to the virtual economy, unlike China, which has devoted much of its investment in Africa to building roads, bridges, airports and other physical infrastructure.
Biden said in his opening remarks that the purpose was not to “create political legal accountability or foster dependency” but to “stimulate shared success,” a word he said characterized his approach. “Because when Africa succeeds, America succeeds,” he said. “Frankly, the total global is also successful. “
Biden’s management has sought to deflect the impression that his efforts this week were aimed at competing with China, which has surpassed the United States in industry and economic cooperation with Africa.
But the focus on Africa is an implicit recognition that the U. S. is still in the U. S. The U. S. still has no options to devote to the continent, which is expected to account for one in four people by 2050 and is rich in resources needed to fight climate change and blank force transition, such as vast forests and scarce minerals used to force electric vehicles.
Biden’s challenge was to convince African leaders that he wanted to work with them. Many were blatantly skeptical. At a side event in Washington hours before Biden, Rwandan President Paul Kagame shrugged when asked if anything had emerged from Obama’s first summit of U. S. and African leaders in 2014.
“Well, at least we had a meeting,” he replied, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Biden planned to return to the summit at the Washington Convention Center on Thursday for a consultation on the African Union’s strategic vision for the continent. Vice President Kamala Harris will host a luncheon and Biden will close the assembly with a discussion on food. safety.
The Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have M. Biden as a hotspot for his speech to African leaders, reminding them that the United States has delivered 231 million vaccines to 49 African countries.
But the war in Ukraine has also underscored the magnitude of U. S. priorities. A mistake by Mr. Biden in his speech underscored the context. He described a virtual economy initiative for Africa as a $350 billion investment, when in reality it will be $350 million. as stated in the official White House transcript correcting the president’s error. By contrast, the Biden administration and Congress have committed $66 billion to the war in Ukraine and the White House just asked Congress for $37. 7 billion.
Some analysts have questioned whether the list of bills outlined by the president and his aides this week would be more effective than a broad and simple initiative like those put forward by Bush and Obama.
“When I hear a laundry list, a long list of investments, it just shows what the United States is doing,” said Aubrey Hruby of the Atlantic Council’s African Center. “But I don’t know if it fits very well. While with Power Africa it is simpler, perhaps more memorable. He took advantage of the strength of the podium.
“The key,” he added, “will be what other people in a month. Or in a year. What becomes real. “
The virtual economy task includes a partnership with Microsoft and systems to train African merchants in writing code. “The great American generation recognizes that the long-term demographic of this world is African,” Hruby said. “One million Africans turn 18 every month. This is the long term.
As at this week’s summit, China was the unspoken factor. When Biden announced $800 million in new contracts for Cisco Systems and a small company called Cybastion “to protect African countries from cyber threats,” he presented a counterpoint to the dominance of Huawei, the Chinese-generation corporation whose mobile phones and computer systems are ubiquitous across Africa. stoking fears that Beijing could use them for cyber espionage.
Biden’s leadership this week announced its help with an initiative to use minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo to make batteries for electric cars in factories in neighboring Zambia. This agreement responds to the African objective of maintaining the supply chains of one of the new corporations on the continent.
It also responds to a U. S. strategic objective. The US has frustrated considerations in Washington that China will gain absolute control over rare minerals in countries such as Congo.
Management also signed a memorandum of understanding for the African Continental Free Trade Area, which began in 2019 and promises to unlock the enormous economic potential of a continent of 1. 3 billion people and a total market of $3. 4 trillion by easing trade barriers among other people. . Countries.
Africa’s borders, most commonly erased by colonies, are further strengthened through protectionist policies, poor shipping links, and other measures that hamper industry. The dominance of lax industry may increase intra-African industry by as much as a quarter, or $70 billion, by 2040, to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty, according to the United Nations and the World Bank. But implementation has been slow, and experts say the U. S. is needed. The US and other foreign powers to bolster their chances of success.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said the current management has been striving to repair ties with Africa for nearly two years since Trump left office.
“Listen, a management chooses not to put as much power or emphasis on one place, it obviously has ramifications,” he told reporters this week. But “we believe we will not get to this summit off to a smart start. We are arriving at this summit with a steam head around a set of problems that this summit, I believe, will set in motion.
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