President Joe Biden’s long-anticipated trip to sub-Saharan Africa — the first by an American president in nearly a decade — was interrupted by the same question, shouted outside Angola’s presidential palace, on the sidelines of a sunset speech outside the country’s slavery museum, and in ornate meeting halls: “Mr. President, why did you pardon your son?”
The three-day Angola visit — set to be the president’s last foreign trip with six weeks remaining in his term — fulfilled his promise to travel to the region. It was intended to be a capstone in his administration’s efforts to highlight U.S. investment in the area and strengthen ties to push back China’s influence.
Instead, Joe Biden’s last trip abroad was overshadowed by events at home. First, President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in last month’s election cast uncertainty over Biden’s vow that America is “all in on Africa.” Then, shortly prior to boarding Air Force One Sunday night, Biden announced he was pardoning his son Hunter, going back on his previous promises he wouldn’t do so.
Far from backlash at home and arriving in Luanda, Biden received a warm welcome as the shouted queries from the U.S. press corps faded into the background. As his motorcade departed the airport, cheers could be heard as hundreds lined the streets, crowding balconies and rooftops to greet him.
The government declared a public two-day holiday for the president’s visit, and his face was plastered on massive billboards and posters citywide. The project Biden was there to highlight — a multibillion-dollar railway backed by the U.S. — allowed “Amtrak Joe” to revel in one of his well-known passions. “I’m a train guy, and I love trains,” he said to the Angolan president, according to an official for the administration present during the meeting.
As he shuttled around the country, President Biden dodged questions about his son’s controversial pardon, which was met with outrage by the GOP and many in his own party back home. “Welcome to America,” he joked to the Angolan delegation gathered at the presidential palace amid shouted questions from the U.S. press about the pardon.
The president closed his eyes for an extended period during a roundtable meeting with African leaders and did not hold a news conference during his trip, which was once a standard practice during foreign visits.
For Angolans, many of whom seemed amused by the pardon’s uproar, the visit — even by a lame-duck, one-term president — was a significant win.
“It’s still a visit by the president of America to Angola, and this would have been unimaginable five years ago,” said an African executive involved in the meetings. “You’re all here, aren’t you?”
The visit by Biden, which included an impassioned speech that acknowledged the history of the slave trade, focused mainly on promoting the administration’s signature initiative in the region _ an 800-mile railway line that Europe and the U.S. back. The line will connect the copper, cobalt, and lithium mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the copper belt of Zambia with the Angolan port city of Lobito. It’s designed to transport crucial minerals, including those required to make batteries for electric vehicles, and the so-called Lubito Corridor to the Atlantic coast for export.
Wednesday, during a visit to the port in Lobito, where he was shown pallets of copper and shipping containers, the president announced over $560 million in new funding for the project, bringing the total American investments to over $4 billion.
According to Helaina Matza, the state department’s acting special coordinator for the project, there are even more ambitious programs to eventually extend it into Tanzania, connecting the Indian and Atlantic oceans.
WH officials: Trip more than checking the boxes
Officials at the White House insisted the trip added up to more than only checking a box for Biden, pointing to the over 20 cabinet-level officials who have visited the continent in recent years. The focus on Angola came as America was expelled from its $100 million drone base in Niger amidst Islamic militant groups’ resurgence in Africa’s Sahel region, and Sudan has burgeoned into the world’s most significant displacement and humanitarian crisis.
President-elect Trump’s shadow hung over President Biden’s Luanda meetings, as some questioned whether his successor would continue to support these long-term relationships and projects.
“President Biden’s a lame duck, and the Angolans know it,” said Trump’s former special envoy to the Sahel region, Peter Pham. In interviews with international and local media given by Angolan officials prior to the visit, he said, “Biden was mentioned in passing, and most of it was spent discussing Trump.”
According to individuals familiar with the remarks, some officials in Angola joked with U.S. businessmen that they could rename the Lobito Corridor the “Trump Corridor” to ensure his support, recalling the Polish president’s proposal to name an American base “Fort Trump.”
At one point, Angola didn’t seem a natural ally of the U.S., given its past as a Marxist one-party state with close ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union. After Angola’s almost 30-year civil war, China funded much of its reconstruction, including over $45 billion of infrastructure investment.
However, under President João Lourenço, whose government has paid over $20 million since 2019 for D.C.-based lobbying to make inroads in Washington, Angola has emerged as one of the U.S.’s closest partners on the continent. According to Angolan officials, the president’s trip was the result of years of groundwork by Lourenço to overcome the country’s history of tense relations with America and position itself as a leading partner in the region.
These efforts assisted Lourenço in securing a coveted visit to the Oval Office in December 2022, during which Biden declared there was “no country more important than Angola” for the United States in Africa.
According to U.S. officials involved in the project, the Lobito Corridor railway will accelerate shipments that previously took 45 days to 45 hours, who referred to it as a “game-changer.” They additionally said it would be important for food security in the area, allowing food shipments to be delivered in a matter of days instead of months or weeks to and from landlocked countries.
African and U.S. executives and officials seemed confident the project, which focuses on investment that would counter China’s influence in the region, would fit into the Trump administration’s policies.
Samaila Zubairu, CEO and president of Africa Finance Corp. met with President Biden on Wednesday and expressed confidence that Trump’s White House would continue the investment. “I think that they are pragmatic, commercially oriented people, and this is a commercially oriented project,” he said.
Officials in the U.S. echoed this view. “If you want to talk about living in an era of global competition, particularly with China, the Lobito Corridor is the heart of that,” said a senior administration official when asked about the venture’s future under Trump.
President Biden also appeared optimistic about the future of the project, as well as his own.
“I’m coming back to ride on the train,” promised Biden, “all the way from end to end.
