The Biden administration’s big push to engage more with Africa is underway as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen begins a 10-day visit aimed at promoting all the economic possibilities that exist between the US and the second-largest continent. biggest of the world.
Yellen is the first administration official to visit the continent since President Joe Biden announced at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December that he plans to take a trip to the region this year, as does Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and a host of cabinet secretaries.
Yellen’s travels will take her from a business incubator for entrepreneurs in Senegal to agricultural sites in Zambia to a wildlife park and a Ford assembly plant in South Africa, each stop designed to highlight areas of cooperation between the United States and Africa. She will also connect with many senior African officials along the way.
Yellen arrived in Dakar, Senegal, on Wednesday night and was kicking off her public schedule on Friday.
At Friday’s business incubator, Yellen plans to emphasize that Africa, with its growing middle class, will “shape the trajectory of the world economy for the next century,” offering significant opportunities for the US.
“This can be beneficial to our economies,” Yellen plans to say, according to excerpts from her prepared remarks released Thursday.
Continental Africa will make up a quarter of the world’s population by 2050 and is rich in natural resources.
China’s growing economic entrenchment in Africa is also motivating the US to deepen ties.
Before arriving in Africa, Yellen met her Chinese counterpart Liu He in Switzerland on Wednesday as part of an effort to ease tensions with the Asian superpower.
His job on the more than 13,000-mile (20,000-kilometer) circuit from Washington to Zurich, Dakar, Lusaka, Pretoria and back home is to engage with African leaders and showcase investment opportunities for American companies.
“A growing proportion of people of working age presents an opportunity for the continent,” Yellen plans to say. “More workers can drive growth, generate more resources to increase investment and facilitate the education of young people and support for the vulnerable.”
She plans to point out that Africa’s growing middle class also presents an opportunity for the US. “It means a bigger market for products. And it means more investment opportunities for American companies that are already creating jobs on the continent,” she plans to say.
The White House strategy on sub-Saharan Africa raises concerns about China’s involvement in the region, stating that Beijing “views the region as an important arena for challenging the rules-based international order, promoting its own narrow geopolitical and commercial interests.” , undermine transparency and openness and weaken the relations of the United States with the African peoples and governments”.
Yellen’s stop in Zambia will serve to highlight her enormous debt to China, her biggest creditor. Zambia is renegotiating nearly $6 billion in debt, and Yellen has criticized China’s failure to advance negotiations. She said in December that it was imperative to find a solution to Zambia’s debt problem “as quickly as possible.”
A senior Treasury official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, told reporters that Yellen discussed Zambia’s debt with Liu on Wednesday and tried to assess China’s reasons for its hesitance on debt rescheduling.
Joseph Siegle, who heads the research program at the African Center for Strategic Studies, said the scope of Yellen’s visit was much broader than the issue of Chinese influence.
“From an emerging market point of view, there’s a lot going on there, with its resources and growth and a large African diaspora in the US. Arguably the US hasn’t paid enough attention to Africa as rigorously as justified,” he said. “I think the importance of this trip is to try to rectify that there hasn’t been enough high-level engagement from the United States in Africa.”
He added that African nations do not want to find themselves in a position where they have to choose between China and the US, but prefer to “maximize” their options and build long-term partnerships.
Africa holds 30% of the critical minerals that power the modern world, including 40% of the world’s gold, up to 90% of its chromium and platinum, and the world’s largest reserves of cobalt, diamonds, platinum and uranium, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Rama Yade, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, wrote this week that the Biden administration can be believed when it says it is not seeking to turn Africa into a sphere of great power competition.
“Africa will not have to choose between potential partners,” Yade said. “If he can make up for lost ground and build on what he started with the December summit, America and Africa will prosper.”
