JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — According to some analysts, the United States is “catching up” with Russia and China, as President Biden hosts 49 African heads of state and royalty at the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington this week.
Russia, China and various European countries have all recently courted African top leaders or come forward with clandestine economic and sometimes military assistance on the continent.
This is, however, the first US summit in eight years, with President Biden saying he hopes “to continue to strengthen our shared vision for the future of US-Africa relations.”
This is happening against a huge cloud of Islamist terrorism that is sweeping the African continent. Africa is now the center of operations for both Islamic State and al Qaeda. Insidious economic infiltration and inevitably accompanying coercion, under the guise of assistance from Russia and China, is rampant, and Kremlin-sponsored private armies are brazenly operating in an increasing number of countries as Russia deprives them of their mineral wealth.
(LR) Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrive for the Forum for the Peace, Security and Governance during the US-Africa Leaders Summit December 13, 2022, in Washington, DC
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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The purpose of the summit, according to the State Department, is to foster economic engagement and promote peace and security among many other goals.
“The United States is clearly catching up in Africa, compared to other powers who tend to see the opportunities that Africa presents,” Cameron Hudson, senior associate of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told Fox News Digital. based in Washington. .
Hudson, the former director of African affairs for the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, noted that “Washington continues to view its engagement in Africa from a problem-solving perspective… We tend to see no need to forge strong alliances with African states to deal with the pernicious influence of malign actors such as Russia.”
The view from Africa itself is not much different.
“Merely meeting several African heads of state does not necessarily imply that the United States will be able to achieve its goals,” Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher on African governance and diplomacy at the South African Institute for Governments, told Fox News. international affairs (SAIIA). from Johannesburg.
China and Russia both enjoy growing influence across the African continent.
(REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool)
Referring to the Biden administration’s focus on the region, he added, “One often reads that Africa is a theater rather than the hub itself. If US incentives on the continent are simply to counter Russia and China, their ability and their interests to effectively create a meaningful partnership will be reduced.”
The administration is also expected to push its agenda to reduce climate change at the summit. But, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, huge swathes of a rainforest vital to gobbling up carbon emissions are being sold to exploiters of oil and gas exploration by a government that says its poor people need the income.
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Many in Africa say they need to keep warm, need to cook, and can’t afford to worry about saving the planet. Soweto is South Africa’s largest township, an area where historically the previous white apartheid government forced black people to live. In the winter months, you can see where Soweto is from the yellow sulfurous cloud that hangs over it, fumes from thousands of fossil fuel fires. The cheapest way to keep warm here is to burn coal.
“The concern of many African countries relates to the fact that developed economies, such as the United States, have historically been major carbon emitters and have mainly contributed to the current climate change crisis,” said De Carvalho, describing a point of common African view. “African nations are demanding proportionality in many issues, including compensation for environmental damage. The role of the United States should not simply be to put pressure on African countries, but to find common solutions to the environmental crisis we are facing.”
People arrive at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, September 19, 2022. Somalia has not yet fallen into famine but several parts of the country are in danger in the coming months, according to a new food security report on the worst droughts of recent decades in the Horn of Africa, released on Tuesday, December 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
(AP Photo/Jerome Delay, file)
President Biden will also seek to address the Kremlin’s threat to food security in Africa in discussions with leaders on Thursday. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that “food security and the resilience of food systems are a critical issue for our African partners who have been disproportionately affected by rising food and fertilizer prices and from disruptions to global supply chains following Russia’s war on Ukraine.”
It is not known whether Washington can exert very effective leverage on those African countries to which Moscow has supplied much-needed grain in exchange for support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The State Department is also planning to address the problem of good governance. Four countries where this is not happening – Mali, Sudan, Guinea and Burkina Faso – were not invited to Washington, but many others with what observers say are shocking human rights and governance records will be able to enjoy the silver service at the White House to President Biden’s welcome dinner.
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Then there’s the leader of the country arguably Africa’s admiral, South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa. He is not attending the summit and is under a cloud of money laundering charges.
An alleged sum of more than $4 million is said to have been hidden in a couch on the president’s farm. Ramaphosa is said to claim the amount of money is much smaller – nearly $600,000 – and claimed it was stolen. Any such amount should have been reported to the currency exchange regulators, but reportedly was not.
Ramaphosa was unable to explain why he, as president of one country, needed to have a significant amount of another country’s money stashed in his living room, claiming it was a payment for a sale of buffaloes.
Pinkie Sebitlo cooks using a coal stove during frequent power outages at South African utility Eskom caused by its aging coal-fired power plants in Soweto, South Africa, June 23, 2022.
(REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko)
Johannesburg analyst Ebrahim Fakir believes Ramaphosa, who came to power on an anti-corruption ticket after a tsunami of allegations was brought against former president Jacob Zuma, should step down voluntarily.
“There are some findings showing that he has violated his office, the constitution and some provisions of the law,” Fakir, director of the AUWAL Socio-Economic Research Institute, told local broadcaster SABC.
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Another reason Ramaphosa is not at the top is that he is under increasing criticism over another corruption-based issue. Under his watch, businesses are struggling to survive as the state power company currently cuts electricity to factories and homes for 7-9 hours a day. Corrupt politicians and managers have reportedly embezzled the funds needed to maintain South Africa’s power plants to the point that, in the past year, there have probably been more power outages than even in war-torn Ukraine.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the African and Diaspora Youth Leaders Forum at the National Museum of African American History and Culture during the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington, DC, December 13, 2022.
(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images))
Biden will be dangling some pretty big carrots this week to try and win more friends in Africa. Sullivan indicated that the president will likely announce his first official sub-Saharan visit to the summit and offer US support for Africa to secure a permanent seat at the G-20 table.
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“The Biden administration has recognized the need to modernize its approach,” says Hudson of the CSIS, adding: “For this summit to be considered a success, African leaders must leave with the strongest feeling that Washington has changed its approach and will the continent on a more equal footing”.
