Start of Biden's visit to Angola overshadowed by his pardon to Hunter

3/12/2024 5:57

        U.S. President Joe Biden
        landed in Angola on Monday for a visit focused on a U.S.-backed
        railway project and on the legacy of slavery, but his decision
        to pardon his son Hunter Biden threatened to overshadow the
        official agenda.
        
        The visit fulfils a promise to visit Sub-Saharan Africa
        during his presidency and aims to bolster the Lobito Corridor
        project, which links resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo
        and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean.
        
        At stake are vast supplies of minerals like copper and
        cobalt, which are found in Congo and are a key component of
        batteries and other electronics. China is the top player in
        Congo, which has become an increasing concern to Washington.
        
        China signed an agreement with Tanzania and Zambia in
        September to revive a rival railway line to Africa's eastern
        coast.
        
        "It's going to create incredible economic opportunities
        here on the continent," Biden's national security spokesperson
        John Kirby said, speaking about the Lobito Corridor during a
        briefing to reporters on Air Force One during the flight to
        Luanda.
        
        He said Biden would unveil additional commitments to the
        project during his visit, as well as to health, climate and
        clean energy programs.
        
        However, reporters on the flight had more questions
        about the Hunter Biden pardon than they did about investment in
        Africa. The president's spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre
        responded to them mostly by repeating Joe Biden's own statement
        on the issue.
        
        The president, whose term in office finishes in January,
        flew out of Washington shortly after pardoning his son, who had
        pleaded guilty to tax violations and been convicted on
        firearms-related charges.
        
        Biden himself did not answer reporters' questions on the
        pardon during a brief refueling stop in the small island nation
        of Cape Verde, off the coast of West Africa, earlier on Monday.
        
        During his two-day visit to Angola, Biden is scheduled
        to meet with President Joao Lourenco and the Zambian leader
        President Hakainde Hichilema, and to tour the national slavery
        museum and various facilities in Lobito.
        
        Partly funded by a U.S. loan, the Lobito Corridor would
        make it faster and easier to export critical minerals towards
        the United States, which has been widely seen as a way to divert
        some of those resources from China.
        
        "There is no Cold War on the continent. We're not asking
        countries to choose between us and Russia and China," Kirby
        said.
        
        "We're simply looking for reliable, sustainable,
        verifiable investment opportunities that the people of Angola
        and the people of the continent can rely on, because too many
        countries have relied on spotty investment opportunities and are
        now racked by debt," he said.
        
        The Lobito project is backed by global commodities
        trader Trafigura, Portuguese construction group Mota-Engil
        and railway operator Vecturis. The U.S. Development
        Finance Corporation has provided a $550 million loan to
        refurbish the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) rail network from
        Lobito to Congo.