The White House is betting on Lobito Corridor in China rivalry in Africa

The White House is countering China’s presence in Africa in a bid to secure crucial supply chains, including key minerals required in the energy transition, a senior Biden official said on Friday. Speaking at the Semafor Fall World Economy Summit on Friday, Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein admitted that China had a headstart over the United States in many developing countries thanks to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“We were off the field, as the United States,” he argued. “So the Chinese didn’t beat the United States out, we weren’t even there. We weren’t even competing.”

Criticizing the Chinese approach for saddling developing countries with heavy debt burdens, Hochstein said the US was keen on mobilizing funds from private investors and multilateral institutions for “bankable”, commercially viable big-ticket projects with significant impact on local economies.

The Lobito Corridor project in Angola forms the centerpiece of the strategy and is at the heart of President Joe Biden’s planned visit to Angola in December. The $4 billion project seeks to connect the Port of Lobito in Angola to mineral-rich Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with a 1,300-kilometer railway line. It is expected to boost access by the US and EU to minerals including cobalt and copper which are used in the manufacturing of electric vehicles and numerous other devices. Hochstein said the plan to eventually connect the corridor to Tanzania on the east coast of the continent.

“We don’t have to compete dollar for dollar with China,” Hochstein said. “We have to have a better offer, and the offer is we will make the investments, we will incentivize the private sector as long as higher standards are met - higher labor standards, higher environmental standards, transparency.”

Among the project’s backers are the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Italian government and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).

The project has included complementary investments targeting communities around the project areas. Earlier this week, for instance, the US announced the approval of $458 million meant to help farmers in Zambia’s section of the corridor to access regional and international markets.

Cover photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Semafor