If completed, the Lobito Corridor project would likely improve supply lines for mining exports from Central Africa and eventually boost U.S. influence in the region. However, the project will likely face construction delays, and it is unlikely to displace the region's strong Chinese presence or immediately increase U.S. control over critical minerals. In late November, Angolan President Joao Lourenco visited Washington to discuss U.S. investment in the Lobito Corridor project, a new railway and road project that will connect mineral-rich regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito. The Biden administration is touting the corridor as its flagship African development project. Lourenco's visit came a month after the Global Gateway forum in Brussels, Belgium, where the United States, the European Union, the African Development Bank and the Africa Finance Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding describing their intent to develop an alternative...
