WASHINGTON —
When U.S. President Joe Biden visits Angola this week, he will put into focus his legacy infrastructure project aimed at securing crucial supply chains on the African continent. Called the Lobito Corridor, the project is the centerpiece of his administration’s strategy to counter China’s clout in global development.
The Lobito Corridor is a $5 billion investment across multiple sectors that is intended to revitalize and extend the 1,300-kilometer Benguela railway line. It will connect the 120-year-old Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in its second phase, to Zambia.
Announced in September 2023, much of the corridor’s financing comes from the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a Biden-led 2022 initiative from the Group of Seven wealthiest economies that evolved from his Build Back Better World plan launched in 2021 as a counter to .
Once operational, it will boost access to critical minerals for the United States and its partners, including cobalt and copper, that are essential in electric vehicle manufacturing. According to a U.S. congressional report, 80% of the DRC’s copper mines are Chinese owned. China is responsible for mining 85% of the DRC’s rare earth minerals, including 76% of its cobalt.
The Lobito Corridor is expected to cut transportation costs, open access to arable agricultural land and drive climate-resilient economic growth, Helaina Matza, acting special coordinator for the PGI at the U.S. Department of State, said Tuesday in a briefing to reporters.
The PGI’s investments will “amplify the impact of that infrastructure” with projects such as developing solar energy, local electricity networks and desalination efforts, she said.
The project is championed by Angolan President Joao Lourenco. Angola owes about $17 billion to China, more than a third of its total debt. The debt is mostly in the form of infrastructure development loans, backed by oil, that funded the country’s economic recovery following three decades of civil war that ended in 2002.
Since launching the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2013, China has become the main backer of global development financing. In Africa, Beijing has signed loan commitments with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions.
From 2013 to 2021, China provided $679 billion for infrastructure projects around the world, according to a U.S. government analysis, while the U.S. provided $76 billion.
The U.S., alongside G7 partners, announced in 2022 that the PGI aims to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 as an alternative to infrastructure financing models that are “often opaque, fail to uphold environmental and social standards, exploit workers and leave the recipient countries worse off.”
That’s a lot of financing to catch up to in a few years, and Lobito is “the first and the most developed” project in that effort, said Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“That's the A+ project, but I don’t see a whole lot of other projects,” Schneidman told VOA.
The PGI’s other project, the Luzon Corridor, was launched in April to support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines.
In Lobito, the U.S. works mostly with European partners. In Luzon, the U.S. is teaming up with Japan to secure critical industries such as semiconductors.
The White House pushed back against the notion that Biden has scaled back his global infrastructure ambitions to the two corridors.
“We’ve mobilized more than $60 billion, just the U.S., and that’s a part of the larger G7,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA during a briefing last month.
“And that’s not just been for two corridors,” he said. “That’s been for investments across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.”
In August 2022, the Biden administration launched an Africa strategy that “reframes the region’s importance to U.S. national security interests,” the strategy says.
Later that year, Biden hosted the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, where he pledged the U.S. to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years.
“We are overdelivering on that thus far,” Frances Brown, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, said in a briefing Tuesday. “We’ve invested more than 80% of that commitment.”