Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on the President's Travel to Angola

Via Teleconference

10:39 A.M. EST

MODERATOR: All right, hello, everyone. This is Jessica Kosmider with the NSC press team. Thank you so much for joining us today, the day after Thanksgiving, for a background call to preview the President's trip to Angola.

For your awareness, not for your reporting, on the line today you will have [senior administration official] and [senior administration official]. You can refer to them as senior administration officials in your reporting.

Before I turn it over to them, as a reminder, this call is embargoed until 5:00 a.m. Eastern on Sunday, December 1st. By joining, you agree to these ground rules today.

With that, I'll turn it over to [senior administration officials] for some opening remarks, and then we'll take as many questions as we can in the time that we have.

All right, over to you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Terrific. Thanks so much, Jess. And can everyone hear me?

MODERATOR: Yep, loud and clear.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Terrific. Okay.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining on the day after Thanksgiving. And really pleased to be with you today.

So, as we all know, this upcoming week, from December 2 to 4, President Biden is traveling to Angola, where he will highlight the transformation and deepening of the U.S.-Angola relationship and will also reaffirm our commitment to strengthening our partnerships across Africa.

This is a historic trip. We are excited about it. It marks the first visit of a U.S. president to Africa in nearly a decade, since 2015. And also importantly, this is the first-ever visit by a sitting U.S. president to Angola.

You may remember that when President Biden first assumed office, he pledged to restore and deepen our relationships around the world, and Angola is a prime example of that vision.

So that's why, to start the visit in Angola, President Biden will meet bilaterally with his counterpart, President João Lourenço, in Luanda. That meeting builds upon strong bilateral engagement we've had throughout the Biden-Harris administration with Angola. President Lourenço attended the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022, and then the two presidents met here in D.C. almost exactly a year ago, when President Biden hosted President Lourenço in the Oval Office.

Together, the U.S. and Angola are working closely to expand impactful, high-standard economic opportunities and improve regional peace and security. We're grateful for Angola's partnership, and we're really looking forward to the meetings where we will further our shared vision for greater prosperity for both Angolans and Americans.

I'll note that this trip also has a regional focus that's far beyond Angola's borders. I'll let [senior administration official] speak more to this, but just to note that earlier in this administration, you may recall that we released a U.S.-Africa strategy. That strategy talks about how it's impossible to meet this era's defining challenges without African contributions and African leadership. For that reason, the U.S. has championed African leadership across multilateral fora, including for advocating for new seats to be added to the G20, to the U.N. Security Council, and international financial institution boards.

On the visit, President Biden will also deliver remarks in Luanda that really lay out both our shared history and highlight the growth and enduring strength of our relationships in Angola and across the continent. He'll discuss how, together with our African partners, the U.S. is working to narrow the infrastructure gap in Africa, expand economic opportunities on the continent, expand technological and scientific cooperation, and bolster peace and security.

This visit will also highlight the work and resources that the U.S. has invested in this vision. You might recall that at the 2022 Africa Leaders Summit, the U.S. pledged to invest $55 billion in Africa over the subsequent three years. Two years on from that, I'm proud to say that we've already met 80 percent of that commitment, and we really view these as investments, not donations.

Together with African partners, the administration has expanded trade and investment opportunities; advanced transcontinental infrastructure; and supported African-led efforts on conservation, climate adaptation, and energy that pay dividends for all of us.

We're not stopping there. While in Angola, the President will focus on one of its signature investment projects, the Lobito Trans Africa Corridor. I will let my colleague speak much more to that.

Finally, I'll just note that the President will be announcing some important new deliverables along the way. I do not want to get ahead of our President on sharing too much at this stage, but I will say that these will be new deliverables related to global health security, to agribusiness, to security cooperation, and to preserving Angola's cultural heritage.

A couple more notes on those. One is on the Prosper Africa Initiative. The President will be highlighting how since January 2021, U.S. departments and agencies in the Prosper Africa Initiative have closed 12 deals in Angola with a combined value of $6.9 billion. He'll share how the U.S. government is making important investments to increase access to nutritious food, strengthen agribusiness, and increase food storage capacity in the country.

He'll discuss how the U.S. and Angola will announce a new global health security partnership to strengthen capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease. And the U.S. will also support Angola's nomination of the Kwanza Corridor to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

So, much more to come on this, and you can expect the announcements and the overall trip to reflect the deepening of our relationship and to reflect President Biden's vision for more equitable partnerships in addressing global challenges together.

So, I look forward to your questions, and I'll turn it over to [senior administration official] to provide more from his standpoint.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. And thanks, everybody, on a Thanksgiving Friday. Look, I don't have much to add, and I'm happy to answer questions, but as [senior administration official] said, one of the examples of the change in our strategy in Africa was to move it a lot more towards investment, rather -- and partnership, rather than traditional development assistance, grants, and charity.

And that's why this visit, and that's why choosing Angola, if you think about what's happened over the last couple of years, is looking at the corridor approach globally, but specifically where we anchored it in Africa, and building the -- refurbishing and rebuilding a rail connection from the Port of Lobito all the way through the Democratic Republic of Congo with a phase two approach into Zambia and eventually all the way -- we're preparing the ground for eventually reaching all the way to Tanzania, connecting the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

This is not -- this serves a number of purposes.

One, it's about critical minerals that are required for the energy transition globally for electric vehicles. It is important for AI data centers and high-end chips. But it is also about connecting all the -- what this kind of infrastructure does is it may be able to bring critical minerals and shipments out in 45 hours instead of 45 days. But it also allows for the growth of true food security in Africa. And we are already seeing that food can be now delivered from the Port of Lobito all the way to eastern Congo in a matter of days instead of weeks and months. It is enabling farmers to grow more local produce that can be used and traded so that landlocked countries are no longer landlocked and connected to each other.

Over the last couple of years in Angola, through U.S. government investment, there has been added more telecommunications. More people are getting connected to 3G and now building out 5G networks, as well as building out renewable energy. In fact, the U.S. has approved financing through Ex-Im Bank of nearly two and a half billion dollars of renewable energy projects that will be able to take countries from energy deficit to energy exporters to their neighbors.

And that's really -- the entire point of the Biden administration's strategy that [senior administration official] just articulated is focusing on the investment side. This has not only transformed the economies by building out GDP, but it does so by focusing on attracting investment, by high standards -- companies committed to high standards of labor, of gender equality, of health, and of environmental stewardship.

And that is really -- that is the choice that is now available to countries throughout the region. Not looking at, "Do I have to accept Chinese investment with low standards and child labor and corruption," but "Do I have another offering to compare it to." And again, this is what President Biden has wanted to transform our relationship in the region, is to offer a different -- more investment, but with higher standards.

And so, this Angola trip is really going to be highlighting that option that exists now in Africa, a direct line from the Africa Leaders Summit that President Biden had earlier in the administration to where we are today, and what I believe will be a policy that is continued by future administrations in years to come, focusing on this investment and partnership between the United States and Africa across the continent.

We chose to focus on a handful of countries over the last couple of years in order to be able to spend the scarce resources that we have in the U.S. government in a deeper and more meaningful way, rather than spreading it thin across a wider swath.

That has also brought remarkable increase in American company investors into -- and Western investors -- into Africa. And we've done this both bilaterally but also through the PGI, the President's signature initiative with the G7 of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, driving this kind of investment across the continent under those same guidelines and rules of increased investment with increased opportunity at higher standards.

So I'll leave it there, Jess. And if there any questions, I'm happy to answer.

MODERATOR: Thank you so much. First up, we will go to Aurelia from AFP. Aurelia, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Q: Hi. Thanks for taking my question and thanks for doing this call. Just maybe following up on what you said about offering an alternative to Chinese investment: Just in September, Xi offered Africa a sweeping $50 billion in fresh funding, promised like a million jobs, et cetera. Isn't it a risk that by this visit that comes late in the presidency, it gives the impression that, you know, it's too little or too late? Or do you really think that focusing on just a handful of countries and very precise investment, like, really offers a credible alternative to the billions that the Chinese have offered?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Aurelia, it is no doubt that China is offering billions and have been offering billions. And let me be clear off the top: I don't think it's a -- we don't think it's a bad thing to have Chinese investment in Africa. But if it means that at the end of a few years of investment, the communities that live in the area of the investment have not seen any increase in GDP, that they've not seen benefits of their lives in it, that it has not lifted the lives of the communities; if it means that the government is going to be living under crushing debt for generations to come, then that's not -- the government is going to have to make the decision whether that's the alternative they want.

What we have heard repeatedly over years is that people want to have more -- people in Africa want to have more alternatives for investment, not less. But if they don't have the alternative, they are forced to go with the one investment they have.

So I think if the United States coming in here with investments that are meaningful -- and this is not too little too late -- I think that after years of being off the field, President Biden has put us back on the field and competing and offering this alternative.

If, as a result, other countries, whether China or anyone else, also comes to Africa and increases the standards of labor, standards of healthcare provided to the workers, standards of defending the environment -- protecting the environment where the projects are, and transparency versus corruption, if that forces everyone now to increase the standards, that will be a huge achievement.

So I think that we're not coming -- this visit is at the end of the administration, but for the last two years, some of the numbers of U.S. investment in Africa are staggering in comparison to previous years, and specifically here in Angola where I think we've spent over $3 billion just in the last couple of years in areas as diverse as telecommunications, renewable energy, critical minerals, rail, bridges -- so, from infrastructure to technology. That's something that we'd like to see grow, and I think that the President sees it as laying the foundation for a new approach to Africa that will be followed by administrations to come.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you. Next up, we'll go to Fatima Hussein from the Associated Press. Fatima, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Q: Thank you for taking my question. My question is: Can the President still have an effect on the continent when he's coming right now when all the eyes of African leaders are on President-elect Trump? And is there a fear that President Trump, whose policies are so different from President Biden, could undo a lot of the things that you're talking about today?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm happy to take that.

Thanks, Fatima, for the question. I'd say, obviously we can't speculate about the choices the next administration will make, but from my standpoint, I am grateful that U.S.-Africa policy has actually benefitted from really strong bipartisan support over the course of multiple administrations. And I think that's a pretty remarkable tradition.

If you think back to some of the really impactful initiatives that U.S. administrations have put forward, impactful initiatives like the DFC, the Development Finance Corporation, that was a Trump administration institution that the Biden administration has taken forward. Think back to the Millennium Challenge Corporation that was launched in the Bush administration. PEPFAR. And more recently, Prosper Africa was also launched in the Trump administration.

So while I, of course, I can't speak for the next administration, I think there's a lot of reason to assume that some of these initiatives will continue on.

And as [senior administration official] has laid out, when we think about an endeavor like the Lobito Corridor, that is a win-win for Americans and for Africans. And so, I would imagine that would be seen in that light of something that's paying dividends for all of us.

So, while of course we can't speculate on the next administration, I think there's a lot of reason to assume the bipartisan tradition will continue when it comes to Africa policy in a lot of ways.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you. Next up, we will go to Zolan from the New York Times. Zolan, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Q: Hey. Thank you so much. I know the focus is going to be on Angola, but you said there's sort of a continent-wide approach you're taking too. Do you expect -- will the President in any way be speaking about the violence in the eastern DRC? Will he be engaging with Rwanda at all during this trip? And will there be any focus, as well, on the conflict in Sudan, as well, during this trip?

And then, also, kind of just a clarification, but can we officially say that this is the last trip overseas for President Biden at this point of his presidency? Thanks.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Great. I can start, and then I invite [senior administration officials] to weigh in.

So, on the eastern DRC, something President Biden has talked about is his gratitude for Angola's leadership on this front. Angola is playing a very important regional mediation role on the conflict in the eastern DRC. And so, while I won't get into specifics of their conversation, I do think thanking Angola for its really important leadership on this front will be part of the visit. There may be other regionally focused aspects of the visit that I don't think we can share more on at this point, but just to say that I think President Biden really does view Angola in the context of its region.

[Senior administration official], I invite you to add anything. And then, Jess, on the last international trip, or not, I defer to you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, Zolan, I think that this will be -- we're stopping in -- the President is going to Angola, but this is a regional approach. Angola has been a tremendous friend, both to the United States over the last few years, which is a dramatic sort of shift in geopolitical alliances as a result of the policy we described before, but also has played a key role -- leadership role in the eastern DRC, as has the United States. So we'll address those as the days go by, as we continue.

But there's -- again, I think the fact that this trip is coming at the end of the administration, I want to underscore what [senior administration official] said. This is a policy that we have every expectation that future administrations will continue to follow, especially some of the investment-oriented approach. And I can tell you that Republican members of Congress have been traveling more frequently to DRC, to Zambia, to Angola, and to the region over the last few months, including senior Republican senators, out of support for this approach. I think that that will continue.

MODERATOR: And then, as far as your question goes on future travel, we don't have any other travel to announce today, but of course, we'll keep you guys posted if anything changes.

Next up we have Aaron Gilchrist from NBC. You should be able to unmute yourself, Aaron.

Q: Hey, guys. Thanks for doing this call. Just two things quickly, if I can. There's been criticism of the political protests that have been happening, the arrests of political protesters in Angola. Do you expect the President will address in any way arrests of protesters or human rights issues in Angola while he's there?

And then the second question: Domestically, there's been sort of head-scratching about why this trip to the African continent by this president, who was supported so vociferously by African Americans here, why this trip is coming so late in his administration.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll take the first part, Aaron. Thanks for the question.

Yeah, I think, as you know, President Biden has never shied away from talking about challenges to democracy, his commitment to democracy, and I think you can expect him to always raise those issues with counterparts, without getting into specifics.

We, of course, are tracking protests in Luanda, and would note that we were heartened that the protests over the last week remained peaceful and had -- we think that's tremendously important.

I'll also say that we and the President and his delegation traveling will meet with civil society while in Angola. So I think having that discussion is always a key part of it.

In terms of when this falls on the administration, I would say the President made a promise he would visit Africa, and he's visiting Africa. He's excited about it. He raises how excited about it he is every time I speak with him. So I'm thrilled he's going.

[Senior administration official], would you add anything on that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, I would say -- look, this has been a -- this is a trip that he's wanted to take for a long time. He's held the Africa Leaders Summit early in the administration, and has done -- this administration has done a tremendous amount of work in Africa during a period of a lot of foreign policy activity. And so, again, as you know, he was supposed to go a little bit earlier; it got postponed for a variety of reasons.

But the important thing is that he is going. And the even more important thing is what he has led and what he has done on the African continent in the policy, which is a total transformation of our policy in a manner that was not expected.

I can tell you that traveling throughout Africa over the last several years of this administration, all I get from leaders in Africa is being grateful for a final change of policy that is focused so much on investment and partnership than focusing on what the timeline of the visit was.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'd also just add, Aaron, to your question: Obviously, there's a lot of focus on the President's travel, and we're really excited about it. But over the course of this administration, just the past two years since the Africa Leaders Summit, the administration has had over 20 cabinet-level and senior officials travel to the continent. And as you know, each of these visits brings with them deliverables. They bring with them new partnerships that are launched. So I think this administration is about the totality of those visits and those initiatives, and we're proud of our record on that front.

MODERATOR: All right, we have time for just a couple more. So, next up, we'll go to Skylar Woodhouse from Bloomberg. Skylar, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Q: Hey, thanks for doing this. Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I just wanted to ask: Given that the trip is, you know, very -- it's practically towards the end of President Biden's presidency, is it the understanding that African nations are taking the U.S. seriously, especially as China is heavily influenced across the continent right now? Is that the understanding that you all feel that, you know, the U.S. is being taken seriously? Or because this trip is towards the end, that, you know, it's just kind of a check mark that Biden has to do at this point? Thanks.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Skylar, look, I get more questions about this from American reporters than I get from African leaders or African-based businesses. So -- honestly.

The President of the United States has led a new policy in Africa. Yes, China is influential in Africa, as they are in other places, and continuing to do so.

It also is true that leader after leader on the continent have asked us to make sure that we have alternatives for those investments. And on this trip as well, it is true that it's coming at the end of the administration, but it's capping on -- one perspective, it's capping three years, four years of a tremendous amount of investment by the United States in areas that represent the growth for Africa, whether it's in the role that they can play in the transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles, as well as to chips. They are at the center of what could be the future. And this trip is also coming as the era of global competition continues, and Africa can play that big role.

The one thing leaders in Africa do not want is for folks to say they're under -- they have the Chinese investment; they have Chinese influence, and therefore, nobody else in the world should go to Africa. That is the opposite of what everybody in Africa wants.

So, all I hear from the leaders I speak to -- and I speak to leaders across Africa regularly, both political leaders, heads of state, as well as business leaders -- is excited for the fact that President Biden is coming, that he's bringing a delegation that has brought to the table (inaudible) from the Africa Finance Corporation, the Africa Development Bank, record investments from the DFC, the Development Finance Corporation in the United States, Ex-Im Bank, TDA, MCC, USAID. The kind of investments that we're doing here are transformative. And what they want is to bring in the rest of the world. I don't know a single leader in Africa who says, "I just got a promise for some money from China, and therefore I don't want anybody else there." On the contrary.

So it is -- the timing is what it is, but it is at a turning point that, again, I don't think this ends here. I brief Congress regularly, and there are Republican senators who were just in Angola recently because of this, and intend to take this forward.

So I see certain parts of our domestic policy is more binary and political. American investment in developing and middle-income countries is not a partisan issue. The way we're doing it is different. But then again, we built on the Trump administration, the Obama administration built on Bush administration, which built on the Clinton administration. That has been a seamless, increasing our participation.

The one thing we haven't done is figured out how to invest more conservatively in Africa. This administration has done that. I have every expectation that both Congress and this administration and the one after that will continue this policy. And I think that leaders in Africa understand that, and that's why they are eager for this visit to take place.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. I think we have time for maybe one or two more, so we'll go with Rishi from Foreign Policy. Rishi, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Q: Yeah, thanks for doing this, and thanks for taking my question. So, you spoke about -- you mentioned that this is investment and not aid in Africa, and we've seen that President-elect Trump, his big thing is kind of making deals, examining the, quote, unquote, "deals" that the U.S. has made. So how protected are these investments that you've made from what the Trump administration might do, from being unwound by a potential Trump administration?

And just as an addendum to that, how would changes to policies on the domestic front, like the CHIPS Act and the IRA, impact Africa?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, let me start. I see very little reason why any of it would be under threat. These are -- one of the things that we focus on when I say investment versus aid -- and I want to say it's not "versus," it's "in addition to." We still have a robust assistance program that is necessary. So it's an additive in here.

But these projects are all done -- the point of them was to be financeable and bankable projects that turn a profit, and therefore, I don't see any reason why any of these would be undone. And from my conversations, both with officials that are expected to be entering the Trump administration, as well as with bipartisan leaders in Congress, is that these projects are seen as the exact right thing to do. So I don't see them being unwound. In fact, I would see some of them growing.

Building the rail in Africa in order to connect its countries to each other and to global markets; to be able to bring critical minerals out; making sure that the United States, for the first time in years, is getting cobalt and copper and lithium coming from this region to the United States and not going 100 percent to China -- these are things that the next administration is likely to keep. So I don't really see the issue.

I think what happens in the IRA and the CHIPS Act, we'll have to see. I've learned over the years of working in Washington that what is said in campaigns is not always what is done in practice. So let's see what happens.

But those programs were investments in America and to make America competitive, and so I find it hard to believe that any -- perhaps some of the regulations will change, but I don't see the core of it changing. Building more chips in America is a good thing. Driving a trillion-dollar investment into the United States on both infrastructure, specifically under CHIPS Act and the infrastructure bill, both are going to be a good thing. And building batteries and components in the United States, I think that, if anything, those will expand, not contract.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you. Last question, we'll go to Kemi Osukoya. Kemi, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Q: Hello?

MODERATOR: Yep, we can hear you, Kemi.

Q: Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask, regarding -- I know during the G7 -- the Lobito Corridor is in partnership with the G7 alliance, and there was an announcement that was made, I believe by BlackRock and Microsoft, in June, while President Biden was in Italy. So could you -- this trip also, a major part of it, will focus on business. So can you talk about some of the American companies that perhaps might accomplish the -- accompany the presidents on this trip?

And the other side of my question is: About two years or a year ago, the President launched the Presidential Advisory Council. And as you mentioned on this call, there have been several trips to the African continent. So, if you can talk about the engagements and what you're hearing from the Advisory Council that engaging the diaspora, not just the African diaspora, but as well as the African American diaspora engagement with Africa, what is the feedback that you are getting that the presidents will use during this trip? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: [Senior administration official], do you want to take the G7 companies question?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Sure. I think we have had companies such as Sun Africa that's invested in different parts of Africa and in Angola in particular, and expanding its operations.

Africell is a telecommunications company that's received investment and financing with the U.S. government, as well as its private sector banking that have been working in about five or so countries in Africa and are expanding in this region, even further beyond Angola, into DRC.

After years of American companies leaving the continent, in the mining business we now have exciting young, new companies from the United States, such as KoBold that made a huge copper discovery in Zambia that will be there as well.

So there's a lot of exciting companies. Acrow Bridge, from Pennsylvania, that is fabricating bridges in Angola and elsewhere.

So what we're seeing is this exciting surge. But as you said, this corridor is part of the G7. We have companies from Europe -- from Portugal, from Switzerland, from France -- and others that are joining this, and all of it being done in collaboration with African governments and African financial institutions, as well as some Americans.

We had announced earlier this year, during the Kenya state visit to the United States, the fact that there's going to be a data center built in Kenya.

We had already announced during the G20 the data center that the U.S. government is helping finance in Ghana. And I'm hoping that there'll be another data center announced shortly.

We also announced the connection from Google, a data line, fiber-optic cable that was going to reach Kenya. But not just that it's reaching Kenya from Asia, but that will be connected from Kenya all the way to South Africa through many of the countries of this corridor. And that is being used with local African companies that are building out the fiber-optic network.

So what we're trying to suggest here is that this is about technology, about food security, about infrastructure build-out, and companies from both -- from Europe, from Asia, from -- representing the whole G7-plus countries are represented in these investments.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And I can just jump in quickly on the question about the PAC-ADE. So that's the President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement. This is one of the initiatives that we're very proud of in the Biden-Harris administration. This was announced by VP Harris at the Africa Leaders Summit back in 2022, and then President Biden signed an executive order directing the Secretary of State to establish it.

As you may know, the council's members are a really remarkable array of individuals who distinguish themselves in sports industries, in creative industries, in governments, in business, in academia, in faith-based activities. So President Biden has continued to rely on their advice and their counsel as he's moved forward our Africa policy.

They did have their first official trip to the African continent as the PAC-ADE. This July, they traveled to Nigeria, and that was a tremendously constructive engagement.

So while I can't get into specifics, I think you can expect that the PAC-ADE will be involved in this upcoming trip, and we continue to be really grateful for their service and their insights.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you, everybody. That is all the time that we have today. If we weren't able to get to your question, you can feel free to send it to us over email, and we'll do our best to get back to you all as quickly as possible over this holiday weekend.

And just as a reminder, this conversation is embargoed until 5:00 am Eastern on Sunday. Let us know if there's anything else we can do for you. Thanks.

11:16 A.M. EST