President Biden makes long awaited trip to Africa

President Joe Biden arrived in Angola on December 3, on a delayed trip to Africa, his first and only visit to the continent during the final months of his term in office, Report informs via NPR.

Biden's trip is the first by an American president since Barack Obama traveled to Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.

Initially scheduled in October, the President arrived in the West African island of Cabo Verde on Monday, before traveling on to Angola.

This end-of-term effort has widely been seen as partly a response to the long-established economic influence of China, whose trade ties and investments over the last few decades have dwarfed those of the US.

The trip fulfills a promise made by Biden to visit the continent during the African leaders summit in Washington DC two years ago. It is also the first time a sitting US president has visited either Cabo Verde - a US ally and one of the few stable democracies in West and Central Africa, or Angola - an oil-rich former Portuguese colony that is increasingly an important US partner in the region.

But the trip comes amid the controversy of his decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, of gun and tax convictions and comes at the end of his presidency, less than two months before former President Trump returns to office.

"The message implied by the timing is hard to miss," says Ken Opalo an associate professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. "Biden had the time and stamina to visit lots of places during his four years in office, but only found time as a lame duck to visit the region. I think the timing reflects Africa's overall strategic insignificance from the perspective of Washington foreign policy insiders."

Biden vowed to put Africa at the centre of US foreign policy and raised expectations for African representation at global institutions like the UN Security Council. But many of those expectations have largely not been met, said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.