Biden welcomes Africa leaders in bid to undo image of US neglect

Bloomberg

US President Joe Biden is at pains to fix perceptions in Africa that the US has neglected the continent while China and Russia make inroads.
He’ll get a chance when he hosts the first summit of its kind in eight years, one that will see him personally interact with leaders from the continent on trade, climate, and governance.
The schedule includes a forum with American business executives and a dinner at the White House for leaders. Biden will meet with delegations from nearly 50 African countries as well as the African Union.
But US officials acknowledge they face an uphill battle in convincing African leaders that they’re committed to reverse years of inattention.
As part of that effort, Biden will announce that the US supports a bid for the African Union to join the Group of 20 forum as a permanent member and for the continent to hold a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
The US is also appointing longtime diplomat Johnnie Carson as a new Special Representative for US-Africa Leaders Summit Implementation to push agreements struck during the three-day event.
Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and key cabinet officials — including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — are expected to announce plans to travel to the continent in 2023.
The administration will host a forum on improving food security amid the war in Ukraine, which has hobbled grain and fertiliser exports. And the White House committed $55 billion in funding to Africa over the next three years to address top priorities, including climate change mitigation.
White House officials declined to detail specifics of the $55 billion investments ahead of the summit, and the total pales in comparison to the roughly $700 billion in infrastructure loans China has offered across the continent. Still, the efforts signal US intentions “to have a real, genuine follow-up” from the summit, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.
“We are very mindful of this argument that says, ‘Okay, you’ll hold this summit and then everybody goes home, and doesn’t it just go back to business as usual?’,” Sullivan said.
Biden aides contend that their engagement with African nations is already paying dividends. Sullivan said Biden intends to develop “not just a plan for the next three days but for the years that follow.”
The first meeting that Biden was expected to chair is focused on “Agenda 2063,” a development blueprint independently written by the African Union that leaders there highlighted as a priority.
Talks over renewing and expanding the US African Growth and Opportunity Act — a law known as AGOA that allows expanded access to the US market — are also expected to take centre stage.
Still, some African representatives have bristled at US
efforts to play catch-up — particularly when the efforts appear to be part of a broader great-power struggle.
Africa “has been always
lagging when it comes to interest and trade,” Rwandan ambassador to the US Mathilde
Mukantabana told US Trade Representative Katherine Tai at a Women’s Foreign Policy Group luncheon event.