U.S. officials want to show that Washington isn’t only a humanitarian donor but also a resource on conflicts and a potential source of investment.
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Kamala Harris, Antony Blinken Head to Africa in a Bid to Counter China
U.S. officials want to show Washington could be ally in economic development, conflict resolution
By William MauldinFollow
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Nicholas BariyoFollow
in Kampala, Uganda
March 14, 2023 at 10:01 am ET
The U.S. is seeking to grow more involved in African countries facing conflict, debt and hunger, boosting its presence in an effort to counter diplomatic inroads from China and Russia.
U.S. officials want to show that Washington isn’t only a donor for Africa’s humanitarian needs but also a resource in countering terrorism and insurgency and a potential source of investment and other economic support. As the U.S. confronts Russia and China, Biden administration officials are visiting regions where the great powers are competing—Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.
Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia later this month, the White House said Monday. In January, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited three countries in Africa, and pledged further U.S. investment and trade. The visits are efforts to follow up on commitments the U.S. made in a summit of African leaders in Washington last year.
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Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country, appears to be emerging from a bloody conflict and is grappling with ethnic tensions, debt and hunger. In addition to war and a record regional drought, Washington has blamed food shortages on Russia’s war against Ukraine and partial blockade of Black Sea ports.
A militia member in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which fought the government in Addis Ababa until a cease-fire struck last year.Photo: Eduardo Soteras/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
In the semidesert strip south of the Sahara known as the Sahel, the U.S. and its allies are counting on Niger to help stop the latest spread of al Qaeda and Islamic State. Mr. Blinken’s visit there will be the first by a U.S. secretary of state.
“African leaders naturally want to partner with the U.S., but we don’t spend enough time meeting with them and asking them how they can help,” said Mark Green, former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania and the president of the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “China and Russia are more nimble and more responsive to requests in Africa for assistance.”
The conflict in Ukraine strained grain and cooking-oil shipments to Africa last year. Closer to home, climate change and sectarian and ethnic conflict have also affected food supply in some countries.
“Conflict resolution holds the key to the future of Ethiopia, and in Niger as well,” said Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, head of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “All these conflicts are typically an expression of the failure of the social contract in one form or another.”
Mr. Blinken is set to arrive in Ethiopia’s capital Tuesday to meet with the country’s leadership, including an expected discussion with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and officials from the Tigray region, which fought the government in Addis Ababa in a bloody conflict until a cease-fire was struck last year.
Mr. Blinken will also meet Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission, which helped broker the Ethiopian cease-fire.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission, is expected to meet with Antony Blinken. Photo: amanuel sileshi/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Ethiopia has long supported U.S. efforts to tackle security challenges in East Africa, most prominently by contributing thousands of troops to an African Union mission fighting the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia. The U.S. has been a major provider of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, including to combat the effects of a record drought that has left millions of Ethiopians in need of food aid.
Yet the two-year war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has upset that relationship. Mr. Blinken and other U.S. officials accused fighters allied with the Ethiopian government of committing atrocities, including ethnic cleansing, in their war against rebels from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Last year, the Biden administration suspended preferential access of Ethiopian goods to the U.S. market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, dealing a major blow to the country’s textile industry.
The government of Mr. Ahmed said Washington was unfairly siding with the TPLF, which the government said was trying to regain its dominance of Ethiopian politics that preceded Mr. Ahmed’s rise to power in 2018. The Ethiopian government has denied supporting atrocities, but says it is investigating alleged abuses, including by government-allied fighters from neighboring Eritrea.
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An African Union envoy estimated last month that as many as 600,000 people died in the war, including from starvation and lack of medical services, until the government and the TPLF signed a truce in November.
Since then, banking and telecommunications services have resumed across most of Tigray, and the TPLF has surrendered most of its heavy weaponry to the federal army. But only around 16% of the 5.4 million Tigrayans who need food aid had received assistance by February, according to the United Nations. The Ethiopian health ministry estimates that it needs some $1.4 billion just to rebuild damaged health facilities in Tigray.
Ethiopia is a hub for China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a gargantuan overseas infrastructure push, with 400 Chinese construction and manufacturing projects valued at more than $4 billion, according to the U.S. Institute for Peace.
Ethiopia and other African countries eager for investment are less interested in taking sides in geopolitical power struggles and instead would rather form longer-term partnerships that convey economic benefits, analysts said.
“You don’t need to tell the Africans that China is here, that Turkey is here, that the Gulf Arab countries are here,” Mr. Dizolele said. “If the U.S. wants to work on competition, that’s fine, but competition shouldn’t be the mantra that the United States is telling Africans everywhere it goes.”
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at
nicholas.bariyo@wsj.com
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