Morning Wire - The New Battleground: U.S. vs. China in Africa | 1.4.25

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

How Biden’s $1 billion pledge to Angola signals a renewed effort to challenge China’s dominance on the continent. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Biden recently became the first sitting president to visit Angola Africa. While there, the president promised more than $1 billion in U.S. assistance, aiming to strengthen relations in the region and combat China's presence there. In this episode, we sit down with an expert on the region to discuss America's shifting focus in Africa and what it might look like in the new Trump administration. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss how the U.S. is approaching Africa as the head of Eurasia Group's Africa practice, Amaka, Anku, Amaka.

Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. So President Biden just made this first ever presidential trip to Angola and announced over a billion dollars in U.S. aid to that country. The U.S. has made several trips to Africa in recent years, largely to combat China's growing influence in the region. First, for our listeners, can you give us some background on China's presence in the region? Sure. So China has had an Africa policy, a very kind of clear strategic policy, I would say since the early 2000s.

You can see some of the memes about how every Chinese foreign minister, the first trip was always to Africa for 33 years. The strategy was clear. It was in exchange for us getting resources. And oftentimes it was oil from these African countries will finance, large infrastructure governments. A lot of it was government-government financing, you know, Chinese companies, some stately companies versus African governments. I wanted to build bridges, roads. And we will then also sell lots of goods and services, but also the money that we're financing is effectively being used by thought from us

to build the bridges. So that was a strategy from the African perspective. And this is kind of where you'll see we'll get to how, I think it has now influenced how the US sees Africa. But from the African perspective, this was welcome because a lot of the traditional sources of fund and the World Bank, US, Western partners were not financing big-ticket infrastructure projects. A lot of funding from the West was going towards more micro-health care, democracy promotion, education, things like that, and not the things that some governments thought were critical

for economic competitiveness. Got it. And what you're describing is called the Belt and Road Initiative. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us? Yes. It's a part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is a global initiative that you could argue is a tool for soft influence for China. And often, if you look at all the countries that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative,

if many of them fell in line with China as one China policy, you know, remove diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. So definitely a tool for soft front policy influence. Sure. And how are these types of programs going? How is it actually playing out in terms of building infrastructure, et cetera, what they're supposed to be accomplishing? And how do citizens there feel about them? I think it's a mixed bag. You know, when I was in Kenya, for example, over the summer, I took a Chinese finance train from Nairobi to capital to Mombasa, one of the main coastal cities. Every time I took it, packed lots of people, clearly a very valuable economic connector in the country. But there are also criticism that it was very expensive.

And there are other infrastructure projects that have not been as useful or were never finished. and there were, in some cases where there was a lot of leakages, you know, collision between African officials and the Chinese counterparts that just meant that the money was wasted. So I'd say it's a mixed bag, frankly, like anything else, you know, really big picture, the way I see it, in the 2000s, China was the new kid on the block when it came to Africa. In the 1960s, the U.S. was a new kid on the block when he came to Africa. It was the new non-colonial power. And both of them made a lot of mistakes when they were the New Kid on the Block.

In 1996, it was very controversial. When the U.S. came on the scene in Africa, again, New Kid on the Block after the colonial era, these new African countries had just won independence. There was a lot of controversy with the U.S. relationships. It was accusations of the U.S. supporting funding coups, assassinating people. Of course, it was in the middle of the Cold War, right? So I feel like there's always that kind of controversy when there is a new, block of power, imagine and growing.

Obviously, there's a debt involved here with these loans. Do a lot of these countries end up finding themselves in crippling debt? Are they able to actually pay their way out of them? How's that playing out? Good question. So that's something that comes up a lot. So a lot of the bottom road projects, yes, involves financing, big infrastructure projects. It's a lot of money.

It does mean that there is a lot of debt servicing costs that come along with it. but the narrative that somehow Africa's debt problem is a Chinese problem is actually misleading because if you look at you know we we look at the numbers a lot here at your group but if you look at the numbers most debts owed by African countries is not owed to Chinese entities most debts owed by African countries is actually owed to multilateral agencies and commercial debtors like Eurobonds. People often say China is the biggest bilateral lender. That is absolutely true.

But that's a very specific narrow categories. Most countries do not loan directly. Most Western countries do not give big loans directly to African countries. So, of course, China would be the biggest bilateral lender. But other countries like the U.S., France, UK, a lot of their funding, their loans goes through the multilateral agencies, the Britain rules agency. So I think it's an important thing. It's an important kind of caveat to put that it's not the case that most debt owed by

these countries is old to China. So now the Biden administration is giving $1 billion in U.S. aid. What is that designated to do? What kinds of stipulations does that come with in terms of how it can be used? Yeah. So my understanding is that a lot of that goes through U.S. age. It's about 800 million of it goes through USAID. Some of it is through the U.S. Department's Agriculture, Commodity Credit Corporation.

So you can think about a lot of the things that USAID funds. A lot of it is healthcare, education, and then there's some like community promotion type stuff. So, I mean, that's how I would think. Look, I'll be honest with you, all of these numbers, it's always, it's very hard. even when it's the U.S. numbers, certainly when it's Chinese numbers. When it's Chinese numbers, like you take it with a big grain of salt, because they always come and announce big numbers and most of it never materializes. But even when it's the U.S. numbers, it's often very hard to figure out

what is already existing programs and what is neat. Because they'll always come and announce a collation of stuff that is already exist, and it's really hard to tell apart, like, what's actually in the end day. Right. There's that political drive to make things seem more generous than they are a lot of times. How do you think the presence of rare earth minerals that we use in many electronics, including semiconductors and EVs? How does that play into both China and the U.S. desire to influence Africa? I think it's extremely important.

And if you think about the choice of Angola, it's a part because of the Lobato corridor, which is all about access and critical minerals. So absolutely, this is an extremely important part of the calculation for both China and the U.S. is securing access to those critical minerals, or at least ensuring that access to them is not blocked off by your competitor. We're about to have a new administration,

the Trump administration. Do you see anything changing in regard to what was just promised to Angola as the new administration comes in? Is this the kind of thing that might be reversed or not? No, so more broadly, Africa policy in the U.S. has been pretty stable

across administrations. And if you look, you can draw a line through, you know, all the way from Bush through Trump. And this is what I mean. So I do think that there is a broader shift happening. So when we started this conversation, you asked me about what's China doing in Africa. Over the last decade or so, there has been a growing awareness in the U.S., among the U.S. officials, that the failure to center economic transformation in their relationships

of South African countries. That doesn't, not to say that human rights and governance and those things that usually the U.S. led with are not important. They're very important. But it's going to have to center what is most critical and what is most of mind for these African countries, economic transformation, which in their relationships was, was a mistake or at least what, you know, there could be improvement.

So there has been a shift in terms of centering the relationship on value promotion to trying to center it more. on trade and investment. And we've seen that shift to run through both Democratic and Republican administrations. So that shift has been happening, starting with Obama's Power Africa, through Trump's Prosper Africa, through Biden's kind of really laser focus on the Lobito Corridor, which is all about trade, which is all about investment and infrastructure and kind of like taking more of like, you know, you could call it a Chinese approach to fund infrastructure projects.

It's something that both sides agree on. Deal in. What can we get in return? We get critical minerals. You get infrastructure. Fine. Let's make a deal. That sounds like something Trump's people will go along with.

So all of that to say that I don't see a shift because this is something that both sides can really agree on. Yeah, it makes sense. And what do you think the future of Western nations and G7 nations in Africa is going to look like in the next decade or so? Ah, that's a really big question. I'm not sure where I there's so many ways I could go with it right like but you know like the G7 PGI partnership for global infrastructure I think it's called which is part of what the Lobito Corridor in Angola is meant to be like a pilot of right it's supposed to be a G7 initiative even though it was something started by Biden so that's something you know we'll keep an eye on but like more broadly if you've been paying attention there's a big issue right now in Francophone Africa in terms of of anti-French sentiment because France has been like the other kind of, you know, major Western country that had significant influence in the region. So I think there's an inflection point here to see, you know, how as France is being forced to retreat from Franco from West

Africa, Russia is trying to fill that gap. What does that look like, right? Can the US do more with France not being there? Can France do more in Angofoan, African country? So I think there is a, it's it's a transition period right now, frankly, I would say. And so there's a lot of moving parts that to watch in terms of what the future relationship looks like between these countries and G7 member countries. You brought up Russia. I would like to ask specifically about that. What is Russia's role or influence in the region in Africa in general? Very good question. Look, I think Russia's influence is a lot less than meets the eye. Russia doesn't have a lot to offer to these African countries.

When I say a lot of offer in terms of resource, they don't have a lot of money and have little resources. Trade between Russia and these African countries is minuscule. But there is, in some cases, a historical relationship that's in particularly South Africa in the sense that Russia financed the liberation movements there when none of the Western countries were willing to. In front, the Western countries were supporting the minority white, apathite regime.

So there's a little bit of goodwill, historical goodwill there. In Franco and Africa, it's really more about regime security for non-democratically elected governments that came to power and can't trust their own militaries. So all that, I say that to say, I don't see Russia's influence growing over time in any substantial way. The one area that have been pretty influential and it's just online disinformation, as they have been everywhere else in the world. But that's not a path to, in my view, some substantive influence on countries. Like you can destabilize, you can profit in already unstable situations, right, in that way. But that's pretty much it.

You hear to see them pretty quickly. And that's why, in my view, you know, the only purpose, you know, the only problem, places where you can talk of some form of Russian influence in Africa at the failed states. And they're also small states, mostly small states, that are not where most Africans live. Burkina, Paso, Mali, Niger. I mean, some of them have a number of people in them, but they're not the most significant countries in the economy, in the region. Final question. From your perspective, what do you think is one of the most important things to keep an eye on in the next couple of years in terms of developments with relations?

between the U.S. and Africa? So here's what I think, so this is a little bit philosophical, but I think that the big challenge for the U.S. is to figure out how to center, in my view, state capacity, like make sure at the core, I guess, of what the U.S. is foreign policy tries to convey is our values are better, right? Like we want you to look like us. Democracy is good. Don't be like China or Russia and the rest of them.

And most African countries agree with that. But I think that there is a challenge in not just value promoting, but actually put in your money where your mouth is to make sure that those systems deliver concrete public goods to their citizens. It's not just for values, democracy for democracy's sake. It's, does it deliver electricity, infrastructure, prosperity, you know, jobs, right? Really centering that as well on not just talking about those bodies. And I think that's, for me, that's the challenge, right?

And I've seen a shift moving in that direction. And I think that the U.S. needs to continue moving in that direction and figuring out how to crystallize and bring those two things together better to ensure that people don't give up on the idea of democracy or that they don't decouple that democracy can also bring prosperity. Like we actually have to work hard at making sure that those two things link up. It doesn't happen automatically. Yeah, well, let's hope that we do see that progress. Amaka Anku, thank you so much for talking with us.

Sure. Anytime. That was Eurasia Group's Amaka Anku, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire.