To Rebuild Influence in Africa, the U.S. Should Go Green

Focused on war in Europe, the administration of President Joe Biden has paid comparatively little attention to the U.S.’s relations with Africa. Yet deeper U.S. engagement with the planet’s most youthful and fastest-growing continent is essential to global stability. Biden can both meet Africa’s needs and advance U.S. security interests by focusing on the biggest threat to Africa’s future: climate change.

Biden took office pledging to make Africa a bigger foreign-policy priority. Biden addressed the African Union shortly after his inauguration and dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a five-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa last November. The administration’s actions, however, have fallen short of its rhetoric. The continent accounts for not much above 1% of U.S. bilateral trade and a sliver of its overall foreign direct investment. U.S. efforts lag China’s, whose bilateral trade with Africa was roughly 4% of its total last year, or more than $250 billion. Russia has also expanded its presence in Africa, forging military assistance partnerships with at least 30 governments on the continent worth $12 billion.