Pity poor Angola. President João Lourenço placed a multimillion-dollar bet on hiring expensive Washington, D.C. lobbying firms to put his southern African country on the U.S. agenda.
Whatever they did worked because, over the past several years, Angola seemingly became the only country in Africa that anyone in DC really got excited about.
Last year, the White House published a list of accomplishments in its ties with Angola that few, if any, other African countries could come close to matching. Lots of high-level engagements, millions of dollars in loans, and, most importantly, a policy vision that showcased Angola as the model for how the United States and Europe plan to confront China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The Lobito Corridor is a massive infrastructure development project that stretches from Angola’s Atlantic Coast all the way to the copper/cobalt belts in Zambia and the DR Congo. Washington issued billions in new loans to refurbish the 1,700km railway and to build new data and energy lines along the route along with a network of small business hubs.
The State Department served as a sort of matchmaker to pair up U.S. businesses that have long been reluctant to invest in Africa with primed opportunities along the length of the corridor.
Things were going so well that Joe Biden, who had not visited the continent as president, announced that he would make Angola the only place in Africa that he would go before the end of his term.
All that lobbying money looked like it was really paying off.
But since last month, things have started to unravel. First, a massive hurricane ripped through Florida, forcing the president to postpone his trip to Luanda last month. Then, last week, a different kind of hurricane, this one political, ripped across the country when the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris, was swept away at the polls by Donald Trump.
Now, Biden’s upcoming trip on December 5th is more or less useless, given that both he and his party are effectively lame ducks. In fact, Biden’s visit is potentially a very dangerous liability for Angola, given the temperament of the incoming Trump administration.
Trump’s previous term in office was marked in part by his use of executive power to undo hundreds of policies implemented by former president Barack Obama for no other reason than that he didn’t want to give his predecessor even the hint of a legacy. Any signature Biden policy, like the Lobito Corridor, is similarly in peril.
The fact that Biden is going to Luanda and will no doubt celebrate the Lobito Corridor development will put the entire initiative into the crosshairs of the Republican transition team.
Now, there’s a lot about the Lobito Corridor project that Republicans like, especially the part about competing with China, so they may not cut the whole thing. But the incoming president is well-known for being rather vindictive, so if Lourenço wants this initiative to survive, he’s going to have to hire a lot of additional lobbyists to make the point this thing isn’t “a Biden project.”
Just think about that when you see Biden in three weeks smiling under a Lobito Corridor sign in Angola.
