US investment in the Lobito rail corridor linking the mines of Congo and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic coast will be front and centre when President Joe Biden makes his first trip to Africa today. The rest of the continent is hoping to get in on the action.

While Donald Trump’s election victory has added an element of uncertainty to the Biden administration’s signature infrastructure project in Africa, the incoming president is widely expected to continue supporting the effort to roll back China’s domination of supply chains for critical minerals.

The US and its partners have already mobilised some $5bn for the project, and more countries are taking notice.

“From the African perspective, the Lobito Corridor represents a momentous occasion for the continent’s economic growth and development, and it is also reinforcement for the [African Union’s] Agenda 2063 particularly that infrastructure development is pivotal to Africa’s integration,” says Ismail Esau, Chargé d’affaires ad Interim at the South African Embassy in Washington, DC.

“As a country with a long history and expertise in mining, South Africa is also invested in collaborating with the US and fellow African countries in ensuring that the continent’s next phase of mining can place greater emphasis on beneficiation,” Esau adds.

“This is especially important when considering the growing number of Africa’s youth population and the opportunities required to enable their positive contribution to the economy.”

Leveraging the benefits of Lobito

Over the past couple of months, officials from Burundi have been on a worldwide tour with stops in France, Morocco, Belgium, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to invite potential public and private investors to an Economic Round Table on 5 and 6 December in Bujumbura. The country’s largely untapped mineral wealth is a major focus of development.

“We can profit from this corridor,” Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning Audace Niyonzima told The Africa Report at a Washington ‘Meet and Greet on Mobilizing Potential Partners’ following the IMF and World Bank meetings in October.

Burundi is keen to attract US investors after Biden lifted six-year-old sanctions on the country at the end of 2021.

Niyonzima points to Lake Tanganyika as a possible link to the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and onto the corridor. For the past four years, the African Development Bank has been funding the rehabilitation of Bujumbura Port as part of the Lake Tanganyika Transport Corridor Development Project to boost regional integration.

“That is the opportunity you want to leverage with Burundi as it is a strategic location, geographically speaking,” Niyonzima says.

The Biden administration says the Lobito Corridor has the potential to transform the wider continent. Already, Washington is looking beyond the western corridor to Angola’s port of Lobito to an eastern route traversing Tanzania on the way to the Indian Ocean.

“The way that we’re looking at these investments in the Lobito Corridor is that they should ultimately benefit so much more of Africa,” Acting Special Coordinator for the Partnership on Global Infrastructure Investment Helaina Matza tells The Africa Report on a conference call with reporters to preview Biden’s trip.

“Even though the infrastructure is primarily focused on physically connecting three countries, the implication of that enhanced regional connectivity should have knock-on effects of reducing trade costs, strengthening supply chains, which are goals that we’ve heard from other African leaders that want to be involved in this project and have a closer relationship with the US and our partners.”

She says the real value of the Lobito Corridor is that it demonstrates a model of investment.

“The idea of the Lobito network is to be a competitive open access … so it could connect with other projects on the continent,” Matza says.

“We didn’t pick one route; we think that could be multiple routes,” she adds. “Whether that’s South Africa or thinking about some of the other transit routes that are being developed through Namibia, we hope over time this will be a resilient network that benefits with Lobito being an important portion of it, but certainly not the exclusive set of investments on the continent.”

Playing down the Trump wild card

Biden’s top Africa adviser Frances Brown told reporters on a 26 November media call that the administration has three primary goals for the trip.

Any administration would recognise the strategic value of the US having easy access to minerals and not having key minerals like cobalt tied up and controlled by countries that are unfriendly towards the US

“One is to lift US leadership on trade, investment and infrastructure in Africa … Number two is to highlight Angola’s regional leadership and global partnership on a full spectrum of pressing issues, including trade, security and health. Lastly, to highlight the remarkable evolution of the US-Angola relationship.”

A senior administration official on a follow-up call said the president is expected to announce “new deliverables related to global health security, agribusiness, security cooperation and preserving Angola’s cultural heritage”.

While Trump has shown little interest in green energy or Africa, his former advisers don’t expect him to undo Biden’s work on the continent.

“The private sector in the US is going to remain very interested in the minerals,” says former assistant secretary of state for African Affairs Tibor Nagy. “Any administration would recognise the strategic value of the US having easy access to minerals and not having key minerals like cobalt tied up and controlled by countries that are unfriendly towards the US.”

Timing is everything

And as Biden alights from Air Force One, commodities trader Trafigura Group, one of the investors of the Lobito Corridor, goes on trial in Switzerland on charges of bribing an official in an effort to grab oil contracts in Angola.

The alleged kickbacks, to a former employee of Angola’s state oil company, is just the latest in bribery in commodities in the country.

One year ago, a former Angolan official was slapped with charges of accepting bribes more than $5m from Trafigura Group over a two year period.