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US President, Joe Biden, has said he is “very proud to be the first American president visiting Angola” at the start of talks with his counterpart João Lourenço.
Discussions at the presidential palace in the capital, Luanda, were on security and trade, the BBC reports..
The US government is backing a new 1,300kilometers railway project linking an Angolan port with mining areas in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia.
The visit to oil-rich Angola is part of a US effort to focus more on trade and investment in Africa, in what some analysts see as a counter to China’s influence on the continent.
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In his first and only trip to Africa during his presidency, Biden’s choice of Angola was significant and it signals a dramatic improvement in relations between the two nations.
Welcoming the US president to the country, Lourenço described the visit as a turning point in US-Angola relations.
“I’m deeply proud of everything we have done together to transform our partnership thus far,” Biden said in response.
Angola was firmly in the political orbit of China and Russia after independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, but since taking power in 2017, Lourenço has steered it towards closer relations with the US.
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