Twice a week, a cargo train groaning under hundreds of tons of copper concentrate pulls into the Angolan port of Lobito from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The locomotive is made by Pittsburgh-based Wabtec Corp. but many of the wagons come from China, and just outside town the train passes signage promoting a Chinese construction company. That speaks to the train line’s messy pedigree: Built by Scottish engineer Robert Williams in the early 20th century and refurbished by a Chinese company about a decade ago, the line is now run by a group led by commodities trader Trafigura.

The train, which runs from the Atlantic coast deep into Congo, is of particular interest to a passenger arriving 300 miles to the north, at the Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport in Luanda, Angola’s capital. On what will likely be his last overseas trip as president, Joe Biden is scheduled to step off Air Force One into the heat of the southern summer this afternoon, and the train line will top his agenda.

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Biden, making the first visit to Africa by a sitting US president in almost a decade, sees the journey as a way to counter Chinese influence in the region and secure access to minerals critical to weaning the global economy off carbon-based fuels. Key to that effort is the 1,100-mile Lobito railway, which once carried uranium from Congo for the Manhattan Project. It’s getting an $866 million upgrade aimed at easing shipments of minerals such as copper and cobalt from Zambia and Congo to US ports.

Lacking a reliable rail option until the new team began running the Lobito line about a year ago, mines in Zambia and Congo have largely relied on trucks traveling to ports in South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique and Namibia. Those routes are at least 40% more expensive than rail, involve border crossings that can take days and are vulnerable to criminal gangs that descend on drivers, making off with their loads.

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Despite the Chinese investment that restored the line in 2015, freight traffic was almost nonexistent because of limited capacity and the dismal condition of the tracks in Congo. Since the Trafigura group took over and introduced new trains—largely paid for by the US—travel times have fallen from more than a month to less than a week, so shipments of minerals can reach the US in about half the time it took a year ago.

US influence in the region has fallen far behind China over the past two decades. Angola’s oil industry—which accounts for some 90% of the country’s export revenue—sells more than half its output to China. And Beijing has pledged more than $1 billion to refurbish an alternate route for minerals and other cargo east into Tanzania and the Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam—a line originally built under Mao Zedong. “There is no time to waste,” says Amos Hochstein, a Biden adviser who’s been a strong supporter of the Lobito initiative. “We have been absent from the scene for far too long.”

Biden aims to expand US influence with an additional rail connection to Zambia. The 500-mile line, which will cost about $1.6 billion, would directly link Zambia’s copper belt to Lobito on a shorter route that bypasses Congo. “It’s one of the most ambitious investments we’ve made in a very long time,” says Helaina Matza, an official in the Biden State Department.

Angola and the US established diplomatic relations in 1993, as the Cold War wound down following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But after the end of Angola’s civil war (in which US-backed rebels often sabotaged the Lobito railway), the country looked to China to finance its reconstruction. Angola now owes more than $1.8 billion to Beijing for the earlier work on the Lobito rail line, about 10% of its total debt to China.

Since João Lourenço was elected president in 2017, Angola has sought to reduce its dependence on China. And after leadership changes in recent years, Congo, Tanzania and Zambia have similarly sought warmer relations with the US, leading to a surge of Western money.

The US International Development Finance Corp. has approved a $553 million loan to the Trafigura-led Lobito Atlantic Railway SA for work on the line. The State Department says the US government and American companies have committed almost $5 billion to projects along the corridor in agriculture, energy, telecommunications and more. And Italy and the African Development Bank have pledged a total of $820 million for the new connection into Zambia. While that’s only about half of the estimated cost, Zambian officials say they expect the US to come up with much of the rest.

A central motivation behind the investment is ensuring access to Africa’s mineral wealth. Congo and Zambia hold an estimated 10% of the world’s copper deposits and the majority of the planet’s cobalt. Both are crucial to electric vehicles and other elements of the transition from fossil fuels. Chinese mining companies produce more than two-thirds of Congo’s copper and cobalt, with one company alone plowing $9 billion into projects since 2016. In Zambia, Chinese mine operators have pledged investments approaching $5 billion by 2031.

Now, Western corporations are seeking to gain a foothold. KoBold Metals, a US company backed by Bill Gates, is planning a $2.3 billion copper mine in Zambia that has committed to shipping a substantial share of its planned annual production of 300,000 tons of copper via the new rail line. Barrick Gold Corp., based in Toronto, is spending $2 billion to double copper output at a mine in Zambia. And Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals Ltd. is investing $1.3 billion to expand its mines in the country.

It’s not certain that a project as complex as Lobito will succeed in a part of the world where the US has no real experience developing rail infrastructure. And it’s unclear if Donald Trump, who’s denigrated African countries and has few kind words for electric cars, will embrace the project when he reenters the White House in January. But Peter Pham, Trump’s former special envoy to the region, says the incoming president would support such initiatives. “Lobito helps promote prosperity on the continent, ensuring access to critical minerals and markets for America while countering Chinese domination of supply chains,” he says.

Samaila Zubairu, chief executive officer at Africa Finance Corp.—the Nigeria-based company that’s leading development of the link into Zambia—isn’t losing sleep over the changes in Washington. “In Congress,” he says, “we see bipartisan support for the project.”