Transcript of The New Battleground: U.S. vs. China in Africa | 1.4.25

Joe Biden recently became the first sitting President to visit Angola, Africa. While there, the President promised more than $1 billion in US 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 How, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss how the US is approaching Africa as the head of Eurasia Group's Africa Practice, Amaka Angku Amaka. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me.

President Biden just made this first ever presidential trip to Angola and announced over a billion dollars in US aid to that country. The US 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. China has had an Africa policy, a very 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. We'll finance large infrastructure governments. A lot of it was government-to-government financing. Chinese companies, some state-of-the-world companies versus African governments. I wanted to build bridges, roads, and 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 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, on education, things like that, and not the things that some governments thought were critical for economic competitiveness.

Got it. 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. Often, if you look at all the countries that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative, issue that many of them fell in line with China's one China policy, remove diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. So definitely a tool for soft from policy influence.

Sure. 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. When I was in Kenya, for example, for the summer, I took China Chinese finance train from Nairobi, the 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. There are other infrastructure projects that have not been as useful or were never finished. There were, in some cases where there was a lot of leakages, collision between African officials and the Chinese counterparts. That just meant that the money was wasted. I'd say it's a mixed bag, frankly, like anything else. 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 US was the new kid on the block when it came to Africa. It was the new non-colonial power. Both of them made a lot of mistakes when they were the new kid on the block. In the 1960s, the US, it was very controversial When the US 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 US relationships. It was accusations of the US supporting funding coups, assassinating people. Of course, it was in the middle of the Cold War. I feel like there's always that controversy when there is a new block of power, imagine and growing.

Obviously, there's a debt involved here with these 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. That's something that comes up a lot. A lot of the Belt and Road projects, yes, involves financing big infrastructure projects. It's a lot of money. It does mean that there is a lot of debt services and 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... We look at the numbers a lot here at Yurja Group, but if you look at the numbers, most debt is owed by African countries. It's not owed to Chinese entities. Most debt's owed by African countries is actually owed to multilateral agencies and commercial debtors like Euro bonds. 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. Of course, China would be the biggest bilateral lender, but other countries like the US, France, UK, a lot of their funding, their loans, goes through the multilateral agencies, the Britain Wall's agencies. So I think it's an important thing. It's an important caveat to put that it's not the case that most debt owed by these countries is owed to China.

Now the Biden administration is giving 1 billion in USAID. What is that designated to do? What kinds of stipulations does that come with in terms of how it can be used?

My understanding is that a lot of that goes through USAID. It's about 800 million of it goes through USAID. Some of it is through the US Department's Agriculture Commodity Credit Corporation. You can think about a lot of the things that USAID funds, A lot of it is healthcare, education, and then there's some community promotion type stuff. That's how I would think. Look, I'll be honest with you, all of these numbers, it's always very hard, even when it's the US number. Certainly when it's Chinese numbers. When it's Chinese numbers, 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 US numbers, it's often very hard to figure out what is already existing programs and what is need, because they'll always come and announce a collation of stuff that is already existing. It's really hard to tell apart what's actually needed.

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 US desire to influence Africa?

I think it's extremely It's really important. If you think about the choice of Angola, it was a part because of the Lobeto Corridor, which is all about access on critical minerals. Absolutely, this is an extremely important part of the calculation for both China and the US 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 to what was just promised to Angola as the new administration comes in? Is this the thing that might be reversed or not?

No. More broadly, Africa policy in the US has been pretty stable across administrations. And if you look, you can draw a line all the way from Bush through Trump. And this is what I mean. I do think that there is a broader shift happening. 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 US, amongst US officials, that the failure to center economic transformation in the relationship relationships with African countries. Not to say that human rights and governance and those things that usually the US led with are not important. They're very important. But it's been to center what is most critical and what is most top of mind for these African countries countries, economic transformation, which in their relationships was a mistake, or at least there could be improvement. There has been a shift in terms of centering the relationship on value promotion to trying to center it more on trade and investment. We've seen that shift run through both Democratic and Republican administrations. That shift has been happening, starting with Obama's Power Africa through Trump's Prosper Africa America through Biden's really laser focus on the Lobito Corridor, which is all about trade, which is all about investment and infrastructure, and taking more of, you could call it a Chinese approach to fund infrastructure projects.

It's something that both sides agree on, dealing. 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. 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. 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?

That's a really big question. I'm not sure where There's so many ways I could go with it. But the G7, PGI, Partnership for Global Infrastructure, I think it's called, which is part of what the Lubuta Corridor in Angola is meant to be a pilot of. It's supposed to be a G7 initiative, even though it was something started by Biden. So that's something we'll keep an eye on. But more broadly, if you've been paying attention, there's a big issue right now in francophone Africa in terms of anti-French sentiments. Because France has been the other major Western country that had significant influence in the region. So I think there's an inflection point here to see how, as France is being forced to retreat from Anglophone, West Africa, Russia is trying to fill that gap. What does that look like? Can the US do more with France not being there? Can France do more in Anglophone African countries? I think it's a transition period right now, frankly, I would say. There's a lot of moving parts 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. These African countries, when I say a lot offer to these African countries. When I say a lot to offer in terms of resource, it's not they don't have a lot of money, they don't have a lot of resources. Trade between Russia and these African countries is minuscule. But there is, in some cases, a historical relationship that in, particularly South Africa in the sense that Russia financed the liberation movements there when none of the Western countries were willing to. In fact, the Western countries were supporting the minority-white appetite regime. There's a little bit of goodwill, historical goodwill there. In francophone Africa, it's really more about regime security for non-democratically elected governments that came to power and can't trust their own militaries. 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, substantive influence on countries.

You can destabilize, you can profit in already unstable situations in that way. But that's pretty much it. You're here to see them pretty quickly. That's why, in my view, the only places where you can talk of some form of Russian influence in Africa are the failed states. They're also small states, mostly small states that are not where most Africans live. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger. I mean, some of them have a number of people in them, but they're not the most significant countries in the economies 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 relationships between the US and Africa?

Here is what I think, so this is a little bit philosophical, but I think that the big challenge for the US is to figure out how to center, in my view, state capacity. Make sure at the core, I guess, of what the US's foreign policy tries to convey is our values are better. We want you to look like us. Democracy is good. Don't be like China or Russia and the rest of them. Most African countries agree with that. But I think that there is a challenge in not just value-promoting, but actually putting 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, does it deliver electricity, infrastructure, prosperity, jobs, right? Really centering that as well on not just talking about those values. And I think for me, that's the challenge. I've seen the shift moving in that direction. I think that the US needs to continue moving in that direction and figuring on 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.

We actually have to work harder 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 MorningWire..