Luanda (AFP) - President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Africa during a visit to Angola, where the United States is showcasing a major infrastructure project aimed at countering China’s investments on the continent.

Biden, the first US president to visit the former Portuguese colony, met with his Angolan counterpart Joao Lourenco earlier in the day and was scheduled to visit the port of Lobito on Wednesday for an infrastructure summit.

Speaking at the National Slavery Museum on the outskirts of the capital Luanda, Biden – who hands over to Donald Trump on January 20 – said the United States was “all in on Africa” and pledged financial support.

“I’m announcing over $1 billion of new humanitarian support for Africans displaced from homes by historic droughts,” Biden said.

The assistance will “address food insecurity and other urgent needs of refugees, internally displaced persons, and affected communities in 31 African countries, according to a statement from the US Agency for International Development.

Southern Africa is currently facing the worst drought ever recorded across the region.

Biden also spoke about slavery being “our nation’s original sin, one that haunted America”, as he was delivering remarks outside the museum that exhibits items used in the transatlantic trade of slaves from Africa to the Americas which spanned three centuries.

Angola was by the 19th century the largest source of slaves for the Americas, according to the Office of the Historian, a US State Department-affiliated website.

As he left the stage, Biden told reporters he was “just getting briefed” on South Korea where the president has declared martial law.

- Future runs ‘through Africa’ -

The trip, Biden’s first to Sub-Saharan Africa since taking office, signalled a “turning point” in the bilateral relationship with Angola, the Angolan president said.

The 70-year-old leader elected in 2017 said he wanted to increase economic and security cooperation with the United States.

Biden, whose administration has invested in a massive railway project aimed at transporting critical minerals from inland countries to Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito for export, said “the future runs through Angola, through Africa.”

The two presidents also discussed Russia and concerns that weapons may “end up” in Africa, according to a senior administration official.

The 82-year-old did not respond to reporters’ questions about his pardon announced Sunday of his son Hunter, convicted in criminal cases related to tax evasion and the purchase of a firearm.

On Wednesday, he is to travel to Lobito, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of Luanda, for a summit on infrastructure investment also attended by leaders from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Zambia.

The port is at the heart of the Lobito Corridor project that has received loans from the United States, the European Union and others to rehabilitate a railway connecting mineral-rich DRC and Zambia with Lobito.

It is “a real game changer for US engagement in Africa”, said Kirby.

“It’s our fervent hope that as the new team comes in and takes a look at this… that they see how it will help drive a more secure, more prosperous, more economically stable continent.”

- Chinese ‘alternative’ -

The Lobito project is a piece in the geopolitical battle between the United States and its allies, and China, which owns mines in the DRC and Zambia among an array of investments in the region.

A senior US official said ahead of Biden’s trip that African governments are seeking an alternative to Chinese investment, especially when it results in “living under crushing debt for generations to come”.

Angola owes China $17 billion, about 40 percent of the nation’s total debt.

Human rights organisations have urged Biden to raise Angola’s rights record during his trip.

Amnesty International said last month that Angolan police had killed at least 17 protesters between November 2020 and June 2023. It asked Biden to demand that Angola release “five government critics arbitrarily detained for more than a year”.

“Biden should stand with the Angolan people and seek a public commitment by Angola’s president to investigate rights violations by the security forces and appropriately hold those responsible to account,” Human Rights Watch said.