Washington
CNN
—
When Kenyan President William Ruto landed in Beijing seven months ago, he was greeted on the tarmac by a red carpet and cordons of Chinese troops standing at attention. Among the goals of his three-day state visit in October: securing an additional $1 billion in loans from China to help complete infrastructure projects.
When he arrived at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday to begin another state visit — this time to Washington — he again found a red carpet and troops. This time, however, a special emissary was sent to greet his plane: first lady Dr. Jill Biden.
President Joe Biden is relying on the highest trappings of American diplomacy this week to strengthen ties with the East African country, including designating Kenya as a major non-NATO ally – the first in sub-Saharan Africa – and hosting a sunset state dinner on the White River. Lawn south of the house.
Biden praised his Kenyan counterpart, particularly for Kenya’s leadership in “a historic initiative to green industrialize Africa”, welcoming Ruto to the White House for the visit.
“Together, the United States and Kenya are working to address the challenges that matter most to the lives of our people: health security, economic security, cybersecurity, and climate security,” he said. . “Mr. President, your bold leadership on this front has been important and particularly impactful.
Looming above this pomp is China’s growing role in Africa, which has become a central testing ground for the world’s two largest economies as they vie for economic and geopolitical influence.
Senior administration officials acknowledge that a central factor in scheduling a state visit to Kenya was a desire to counter China’s influence and financial influence on the African continent, which has exceeded United States in terms of direct investments.
For decades, China has provided high-interest loans to low-income African countries to help finance the development of domestic projects, including some flagship infrastructure projects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. . Among them: A high-speed rail line from Nairobi to Mombasa that the Kenyan government financed with billions in loans from Chinese state banks.
From 2000 to 2022, Beijing lent $170 billion to African countries – including $6.7 billion to Kenya – to finance these initiatives, according to Boston University’s Chinese Loans to Africa database. These loans have saddled Africa with costly debt that countries are increasingly unable to repay, leading many countries to seek relief from their sovereign lenders.
Today, African countries are faced with the choice between servicing their debt and promoting their development.
“It’s a difficult situation for them,” a senior U.S. official said. “We would like them to be able to realize their own ambitions. »
During the state visit, the United States and Kenya are expected to announce the “Nairobi-Washington Vision,” calling on creditor countries – and likely China in particular – to provide grants, budget support and suspension of debt to help ease the burden.
Ruto, meanwhile, called on African leaders to rely more on Western countries and low-interest loans from the World Bank to finance their development.
“There is real China fatigue in Africa,” said a former senior administration official. “The administration sees this as an opening.”
And the United States has already begun to embrace this openness. At the Group of 20 summit last year, the United States and the European Union announced that they would support the construction of a rail corridor linking Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, which would facilitate the transit of essential minerals from the region to the West.
In his meetings with Biden, Ruto sought to highlight Kenya – and the African continent as a whole – as a region worth investing in. At a CEO meeting Wednesday at the White House, he told his American counterpart that old perceptions of the continent were changing.
“You no longer look at Africa as a place of war and destruction rather than an opportunity, and we are making that happen,” Ruto told the president during the meeting, according to a senior US administration official who paraphrased the manager’s remark.
However, Ruto’s visit to Washington comes at a time of political instability in many African countries. Military coups over the past year have toppled governments and exposed a fragile rule of law, while traditional U.S. allies on the continent have demonstrated a new willingness to break with the United States. One of the goals of Thursday’s state visit is to demonstrate the capacity of democracies – like Kenya’s – to meet the expectations of their populations.
Biden, who hosted African leaders at the White House for a summit earlier in his term, has since been consumed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Since the December 2022 rally, during which he declared himself “all in” on Africa, he has hosted only one African leader for talks at the White House: Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço .
“It’s no secret that a lot has happened in the world over the last year and a half,” a senior administration official said this week, pointing to the flood of cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials who traveled to Africa as a sign of the Biden team’s commitment.
Yet surging foreign conflicts have prevented Biden himself from making a visit, something he had pledged to do less than a year after the summit. He still intends to visit Africa as president, his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters on Wednesday, although he could not specify when.
Biden said as he welcomed Ruto to the White House on Wednesday that he planned to visit Africa next year – after, he hopes, winning re-election.
“I plan to go in February,” Biden told reporters. It was unclear whether Biden was joking; he then asked how questions about his travel plans were “relevant.”
Whether relevant or not, a presidential trip to Africa would come only after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the continent last year for talks with leaders of emerging BRICS economies.
Advisors say Biden remains committed to focusing attention on Africa, especially amid a struggle for strategic influence from Russia and China. The comparison with former President Donald Trump – who privately called some African countries “shitholes” and who never visited Africa himself while in office – is also not lost on aides of Biden.
Thursday’s state visit to Washington will be the first by an African leader since 2008.
“We believe that what will be presented today are not questions about the commitment of the United States, but answers that the United States actually provides to Africa, to the African people – in this case, in the country of Kenya, but also with Kenya for the entire continent. “Sullivan said Wednesday.
By choosing Kenya for Thursday’s state visit, Biden and his team signal that they view Ruto and his country as one of the United States’ most critical allies in a region where allegiances to Washington have changed.
Kenya is a key U.S. partner in the fight against Al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia and earlier this year joined a U.S.-led international coalition intended to repel attacks on the sea lanes of the Red Sea by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“Across the world, Kenya and America are also united against the terrorism of ISIS and Al-Shabaab, which they continue to perpetrate in East Africa, against the aggression that Russia is inflicted on Ukraine, against the violence that has overthrown too many democracies in both countries. our regions,” Biden said on Thursday as he welcomed Ruto to the White House.
Kenya is also preparing to deploy 1,000 paramilitary police to Haiti to try to quell gang violence, a mission largely funded by the United States.
This week, a delegation from the Kenyan “general staff” arrived in Haiti, according to a police source in the country, ahead of the multinational security support force led by Kenya. The delegation was expected to assess this week whether equipment and facilities for foreign police forces are ready – an assessment that will be decisive in determining a deployment timetable, a source familiar with the preparations told CNN.
Despite strong support from the United States and other regional powers, the mission has been mired in uncertainty and legal challenges for months. It was further delayed following the resignation of former Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in March, until a transitional government council was created.
“It’s not something that’s a completely straight line. This is a dynamic operating environment in Haiti to say the least, and it will require an approach that is adaptive and flexible, but guided by certain essential functions and operations,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
This story was updated with additional developments Thursday.
News Source : amp.cnn.com
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