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Biden Last Minute Trip to Africa: Strengthening American Colonial and Exploitation Agenda
News:
On Wednesday, 04/12/2024, US President Joe Biden concluded his three-day visit to Angola. On the final day of his visit, Biden toured Lobito Corridor, the U.S-financed 1,300-kilometer rail line that stretches from copper-rich Zambia to the port of Lobito in the southwest nation of Angola. Also, he held a summit with the president of Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and the vice president of Tanzania. (VOA Africa 05/12/2024)
Comment:
Biden’s visit to Angola aims at strengthening colonialist agenda plus exploitation of resources of Angola and neighbouring countries under disguise of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI).
In June 2022, The United States announced a goal of mobilizing USD 200 billion through PGII (Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment) delivering energy, physical, digital, health, and climate-resilient infrastructure with an enhanced focus on investing in key economic corridors, including the Lobito Corridor.
Also, during the Global Gateway Forum in October 2023, the EU and the US signed - together with Angola, DRC, Zambia, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) - a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) relating the development of the Lobito Corridor and Zambia -Lobito Rail.
This is indeed not a project for benefit and development of people of Angola and Africa, rather it is Western exploitation with a colonialist agenda.
That particular railway is a strategic route that would connect the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola via Zambia, to the Port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean as agate of moving out resources to colonialist nations.
The Corridor being largely under the US would allow the faster export of cobalt and copper, amongst other minerals, mined from the DRC’s Kolwezi mining town to the western nations. Therefore, the project is purely in place to facilitate colonial capitalist interests.
It seemed, other reason behind Biden’s last-ditch African trip in Angola an attempt to control Chines influence in Angola, central Africa and Africa in general.
According to Jornal de Angola, from 2018 to March 2022, China was among the top three investors in Angola. The United Arab Emirates led foreign direct investment (FDI) with USD 351.7 million dollars, followed by the United Kingdom, with USD 283.1 million, while China has invested USD 225 million.
In September 2024, China’s state engineering corporation signed a concession agreement to operate the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), another sub railway line in the corridor which is highly benefiting the Chinese investors and links central Zambia to the port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.
Thus, for US to overcome all these Chinese economic influence threats in the area obliged to fund the corridor project, and Biden had to make a trip at his final weeks before leaving the White House. The US would never stop its shameless capitalist dealings with Angola, whereby from 1970’s, it was supporting rebels of UNITA that caused a great deal of killings, brutality and destabilization of Angola until 2000’s when American interests were secured.
The Khilafah (Caliphate) State is the only that has a capacity and power to stop capitalist colonial exploitation of humankind. Its re-establishment would be the landmark liberation of the Muslim world as well as other weak developing nations such as Angola and etc.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Said Bitomwa
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Tanzania