President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he was delaying upcoming visits to Germany and Angola due to Hurricane Milton, a Category 4 storm set to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Thursday.
Biden was scheduled to depart for Germany on Thursday and then make his way to Angola for his first and only state visit to Africa as president.
Angola is home to a U.S.-backed port and connectivity project aimed at boosting the West’s ability to compete with China in Africa in the race for critical materials.
Angola’s Lobito Port on the Atlantic Ocean will connect through refurbished and expanded rail networks to copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia as part of the Lobito Corridor.
The Lobito Corridor is financed by the U.S. and other Western partners through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, known as the PGI or PGII.
China has proposed investing $1 billion to revamp the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA), which also runs through the Central African Copperbelt to the Indian Ocean.
China is a dominant player in Africa’s critical materials industries and infrastructure development, through investments and development financing programs like the Belt and Road Initiative. Biden’s visit to Angola was intended to signal the importance the U.S. places on the Lobito Corridor and sub-Saharan Africa.
Climate Change and Competition With China
In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an “above-normal” hurricane season due in part to “near-record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.” So the climate change-induced Hurricane Milton is forcing the already travel-averse Biden to stay at home. It’s yet another setback for U.S. efforts to compete with China in Africa, a continent rich with potential and home to some of the world’s fastest-growing populations.
By the end of this century, five of the world’s ten most populated countries will be in Africa. The DRC and Tanzania are two of those five countries.
For a deeper look into U.S.-China competition over green metals and infrastructure in Africa, listen to our podcast with Cobus van Staden from earlier this year:
Arif Rafiq is the editor of Globely News. Rafiq has contributed commentary and analysis on global issues for publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New Republic, the New York Times, and POLITICO Magazine.
He has appeared on numerous broadcast outlets, including Al Jazeera English, the BBC World Service, CNN International, and National Public Radio.