The White House has confirmed that US President Joe Biden will make his long-promised trip to Africa in December. VOA Português reports that he will land in Angola on 2 December.
During the visit, Biden will meet with his Angolan counterpart João Lourenço and participate in a summit of African Heads of State. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden will meet with “African and private sector leaders and reaffirm the US partnership on a series of high priority issues, including security, health and the economy.” Biden promised to make the trip during the December 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, which Lourenço attended.
Biden originally planned to visit Angola in late 2023, but the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war led him to postpone the trip to October 2024. It was delayed again when, days before he was set to leave, Hurricane Milton hit the US. The strongest storm of the 2024 season made landfall in Florida less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the region.
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Jean-Pierre emphasised that the US and Angola are “working to address a full range of pressing challenges, from closing Africa’s infrastructure gap and increasing economic opportunities and sustainable development in the region to expanding technologies and cooperation, scientific research, reinforcing peace, security and food security.”
The visit will be Biden’s first and last to the country – and to Africa – as president. He has made only 20 international trips since taking office in January 2021, not travelling outside the US at all during the early months of his presidency due to the Covid-19 pandemic and making only limited trips since. Most of his international travel has been to attend major multilateral summits including the G20, COP and NATO.
Biden’s December trip will also mark the first visit by a US president to Angola, which the United States did not formally recognise until 19 May 1993, following the first democratic elections in 1992. Then-President Bill Clinton welcomed the first official US visit by an Angolan president two years later, when José Eduardo dos Santos accepted an invitation to visit Washington DC in 1995.
