To Africa, the first lady goes
On a four-day trip to the second-largest continent, Dr. Jill Biden will focus on women and youth empowerment and food insecurity and build on the personal relationships she established last year.
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FIRST THINGS FIRST
With the House and Senate out of session this week, several members of Congress are making the most of the recess on official international trips — known as congressional delegations or “CODELS” — to countries like Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, India and Japan to advance US interests.
Meanwhile, as you know, President Joe Biden is in Warsaw, Poland reaffirming America’s commitment to Ukraine following his historic surprise visit to its capital on Monday and days after Vice President Kamala Harris did the same over the weekend in Munich, Germany.
And tomorrow First Lady Dr. Jill Biden will join the action with a four-day trip to Africa — Namibia and Kenya, to be exact — to strengthen the US’s partnerships on the continent.
A senior administration official said the trip, which kicks off on Wednesday and concludes this Sunday, will be evenly split between the two countries.
In Kenya, Dr. Biden will draw attention to the food security crisis impacting the peninsula of northeastern Africa that comprises Somalia and parts of Ethiopia — known as the “Horn of Africa” — a region experiencing its worst drought in decades. Over 20 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity with many more at risk of increased hunger as a result.
The official noted that Namibia is one of the continent’s long-standing democracies, one of only eight classified as free according to Freedom House, and the country plays a critical role in overseeing the region’s response to political and security crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and East Eswatini as well as the upcoming Zimbabwe elections.
Throughout the trip, her engagements will focus on the empowerment of women and youth, efforts to address food insecurity and promoting our shared democratic values.
“Despite its key geopolitical power, Africa has long been overlooked by the West, including the United States,” Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee’s Africa Subcommittee, said to Supercreator in a statement. “So I’m glad the Biden administration has made a deliberate effort to prioritize the continent through the first US-Africa Leaders Summit in nearly a decade, renewed investments, and trips by high-level officials — including Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken and the first lady.”
Jacobs added that Dr. Biden’s trip underscores the need to tackle global challenges like food insecurity worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in partnership with the African nations.
Another senior administration official said the US strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa that the White House released last August starts with the conviction that Africa is critical to advancing its shared global priorities.
“We believe that we are in the early years of a decisive decade, which will determine the rules of the road on a host of vital issues from trade and economics to cybersecurity and technology,” the official added. “The world faces major challenges, including stresses, the lingering impacts of the pandemic and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for food security.”
The US, the official said, believes African governments and people will and must be at the table for these consequential discussions and that America will be unsuccessful without African participation and leadership.
“The region, in other words, is a major geopolitical player — not a subject of geopolitics, or a junior partner.”
The trip follows the US-Africa Leaders Summit late last year where Dr. Biden hosted a two-day spousal program where she developed personal relationships and friendships with several first ladies, including Monica Geingos of Namibia and Rachel Ruto of Kenya. The White House said those relationships continue to build and on this trip, Dr. Biden will be engaging directly with both first ladies and their respective organizations that focus on women’s and youth empowerment, as well as a range of engagements with local organizations.
“[It] is another demonstration of President Biden’s commitment that the United States is all-in on Africa and all-in with Africa,” the second administration official said.
The first lady will be the first White House senior official to travel to the continent following the Summit in December and also the first to travel to Sub-Saharan Africa since the start of the administration. This will be Dr. Biden’s sixth visit to Africa, first visit to Namibia, and third visit to Kenya.
Senior administration officials declined to comment on why Dr. Biden was chosen as the first as opposed to the president himself or the country’s first Black vice president. (Harris is of Jamaican descent.)
Although Europe and Asia receive the most international media coverage from mainstream news organizations, Africa has a lot working for it.
The continent is the fastest-growing and youngest region in the world: One out of every four people will be African by 2050, according to the White House. Africa has established the largest free-trade area since the founding of the World Trade Organization in 1995. With a nominal Gross Domestic Product larger than India’s, it contains the world’s second-largest rainforest and 30 percent of the critical minerals that power the modern world.
Africa also sits on both sides of major sea lines of communication and trade in the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. And with three non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, the region’s global influence is growing too.
“This context underscores really why we have reaffirmed many of the important initiatives and programs that have characterized our policies towards the region for decades,” the White House official said.
But the administration’s sense of urgency may also emanate from China’s interest in forging similar partnerships in Africa. Beijing has long viewed African countries as occupying a central position in its efforts to increase China’s global influence and revise the international order, as the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan group created by Congress to monitor and report on issues in the US-China relationship, noted in 2020.
In the last decade, the USCC reports that Beijing has launched new initiatives to transform Africa into a testing ground for authoritarian rule. And it uses its influence in Africa to gain preferential access to Africa’s natural resources, open up markets for Chinese exports, and enlist African support for Chinese diplomatic priorities on and beyond the continent.
And tensions with China at perhaps an all-time high after Beijing flew a surveillance balloon in US airspace — a violation of international law, which it refused to formally apologize for — it’s obvious that it’s in America’s interests, and the world’s as some in the Biden administration would say, for Africa to view China as a foe instead of a friend.
But the White House said that Africa-China relations won’t be a focus of the first lady’s trip.
“Our policy towards Africa is about what we do with Africans. We are focused on deepening our partnerships, working with African governments to address the issues that matter the most to Africans, as well as collaborating with them on the biggest global issues,” an official said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that we’re not aware of the strategic moment that we’re in. But we are not defining our policy by the role of China in Africa.”
How enduring the US-Africa relations are though will depend on if the government’s actions foster the level of inclusion to match its promising words.
“I’m focused on ensuring the United States plays a positive role in furthering progress on the continent by following the lead of local communities as we work to address conflict, strengthen good governance, and protect human rights,” Jacobs said. “I’m also focued on making sure Africans are fairly represented on the global stage to reflect the continent’s strategic significance.”
IN THE KNOW
Rep. David Cicilline announced he will resign from Congress on June 1 to run the Rhode Island Foundation. A special election will be held in the state’s First Congressional District, which President Biden won by 29 points in 2020, to replace the 61-year-old Cicilline who has held the seat since 2011. Cicilline’s announcement … RFI’s announcement … House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ statement … The Boston Globe’s full story
Speaking of special elections: Jennifer McClellan is favored to win the contest to replace the late Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin of the Virginia Fourth, who passed away weeks after the November midterms. If McClellan, currently a Virginia state senator, prevails over her GOP opponent Leon Benjamin, she would become the first Black woman to represent the commonwealth in Congress. Follow the results
Rep. Barbara Lee announced her candidacy to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the US Senate. The progressive stalwart joins Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff in what’s expected to be a competitive and expensive race in the deep-blue state. Lee’s campaign video
Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter to House Democrats that the caucus was still working to confirm the details of a report that Speaker Kevin McCarthy turned over more than 40,000 hours of video to Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Jeffries called the reported video transfer “an egregious security breach that endangers the hardworking women and men of the United States Capitol Police, who valiantly defended our democracy with their lives at risk on [January 6, 2021].” House Democrats will hear presentations on the issue during a virtual caucus meeting tomorrow from Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, and Bennie Thompson, who chaired the January 6th Committee. The full details on the video transfer, per Mike Allen at Axios
In other cable network news: MSNBC announced Jen Psaki will debut her new show Inside on Sunday, March 19 at noon. In addition to the highly anticipated show from President Biden’s first press secretary, Psaki will also contribute a regular column for MSNBC Daily and develop a new original streaming show set to launch this spring. The full announcement … Psaki’s NYT profile
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