LegiStorm

Summary:

The Biden Administration, which has emphasized global strategic competition in its 2022 U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, has pursued high-level engagement with the Angolan government. It has done so in that strategic context and, as a January 2024 State Department fact sheet stated, with regard to such bilateral goals as “expanding economic prosperity and energy access, upholding democracy and human rights, and advancing regional security.” The U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense visited Angola, in 2024 and 2023, respectively, and President Joe Biden and Angolan President João Lourenço met at the White House in 2023. A planned mid-October 2024 trip to Angola by President Biden, his first trip to Africa as president, was postponed on October 8 so that he could oversee federal responses to Hurricanes Milton and Helene, the White House reported. The trip, now slated for early December 2024, is to center on trade and investment linkages, democracy and civic engagement, climate change and clean energy issues, and peace and security. Angola also is a nascent U.S. security partner. In 2023, the United States and Angola, which has expressed interest in procuring U.S. military materiel, agreed to establish a joint defense cooperation committee, which held its first meeting in June 2024. Another U.S. priority and goal of the President’s announced trip is to highlight investments by the United States in the railcentered Lobito Corridor project, a signature Group of Seven (G7) Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI) initiative; several other governments and African regional financial institutions also are providing financing. U.S. support to date has focused on financing upgrades to an extant Angolan rail line, the Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR), the Port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast, and a LAR-linked rail segment in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); the provision of a range of development investments along the corridor in Angola; and funding for an environmental and social impact assessment for a proposed new LAR branch rail line into Zambia. The President also may spotlight other sizable U.S. infrastructure investments in Angola under the auspices of PGI, including two large-scale solar energy-centered projects. Aggregate U.S. financing and technical assistance for Angola-centered PGI projects stands at $3.46 billion. U.S. bilateral assistance for Angola has mostly gone toward health, primarily the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and President’s Malaria Initiative, and areas such as governance capacity-building, conservation, and local development. Oil-rich Angola emerged from a 26-year civil war in 2002. The main parties to the conflict, the then-single party state controlled by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), today are the governing and main opposition parties, respectively. U.S.-Angola relations were once cool, due to MPLA ties with the Soviet Union and U.S. Cold War-era backing for UNITA’s insurgency against the MPLA state. Relations gradually improved after Angola’s civil war, and grew closer in the early 2010s, when an ongoing Strategic Partnership Dialogue was established. Ties have strengthened significantly during President Lourenço’s tenure (2017-present). Angola also retains close ties to Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Warming U.S.-Angolan bilateral relations are not without complications. Angola has a history of semi-autocratic governance and public corruption, and human rights abuses attributed to state security forces. Such issues may prove challenging to address, though the United States has sought to do so though governance and assistance programs and by sanctioning selected Angolan actors assessed to have engaged in corruption. Congress has helped shape U.S.-Angola relations by authorizing and appropriating funds for bilateral aid, security cooperation, and development finance, and by engaging in oversight of U.S. PGI and Lobito Corridor investments and via direct engagement with Angolan officials. In 2010, Angola also featured prominently in a Senate oversight report and hearing on preventing foreign corruption in the United States. The Lourenço administration has emphasized efforts to counter corruption, though some observers have questioned the focus and impact of such efforts. Many of the highest-profile targets of these government efforts have been relatives and associates of Lourenço’s late predecessor, José Eduardo dos Santos (in office 1979-2017), and while Angola has improved its standing in international assessments of graft, polling indicates that many Angolans view corruption as persistent or growing. The Lourenço government also has sought to enact economic reforms to diversify the oil export-reliant economy, attract investment, and generate broad-based growth. To date, success under the current government has been mixed, as suggested by variable and often negative economic growth rates. While Angola’s gross domestic product is among the 10 largest in Africa, structural economic challenges, poverty, unmet socioeconomic needs, and income inequality have persisted. Angola is arguably an increasingly influential country within Africa. Since the mid-2010s, Angola has played a role in regional conflict mediation in eastern DRC. Since 2022, President Lourenço has been designated by the African Union and International Conference on the Great Lakes Region to mediate such efforts, in particular talks between DRC and Rwanda.