U.S. makes diplomatic push in Africa to counteract Russian and Chinese influence

Read the Full Transcript

• Judy Woodruff:

  The United States top diplomat visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo today, where he met with that nation's president and foreign minister.

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken trip as part of a five-day tour across sub-Saharan Africa to unveil the administration's new strategy for the region.

  As Nick Schifrin reports, it's a culmination of a diplomatic and humanitarian push at a time when Russia is trying to enhance its own influence in Africa.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Three weeks and Africa, three Cabinet secretaries. In Kenya, suffering from drought, USAID administrator Samantha Power.

• Samantha Power, USAID Administrator:

  We are providing $1.6 billion in financial support to our partners.

• Nick Schifrin:

  In Ghana, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

  Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: Africans have the right to decide their foreign policy positions free of pressure and manipulation.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And, in South Africa, Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

  Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State: Sub-Saharan Africa is a major geopolitical force.

• Nick Schifrin:

  But it's not just Americans. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently launched his own charm offensive across four African countries, ending in Egypt.

  Russia provides much of the continent's food and is Africa's largest arms supplier. Earlier this year, at the U.N., nearly half of African countries did not condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

  The new U.S. strategy promotes democracy and presents African countries as partners.

• Antony Blinken:

  And one of the focuses is on what we will do with African nations and peoples, not for African nations and peoples.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And to discuss U.S. and Russian, as well as Chinese efforts to gain stronger sway in Africa, we're joined by Kholood Khair, the founding director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank in Sudan, and Cameron Hudson, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the former African affairs director on the National Security Council staff for the George W. Bush administration.

  Welcome to the "NewsHour."

  Kholood Khair, let me start with you.

  Let's lay out the U.S. strategy that Secretary of State Blinken laid out, first of all, promoting openness, an implicit counter to Chinese influence, advocates for democracy, which he said counters Russian influence, fights COVID, and to lead a clean energy transition.

  What's your response to that strategy?

• Kholood Khair, Founding Director, Confluence Advisory:

  I think, on paper, it sounds like it's what the doctor ordered.

  But I think that the U.S. strategy seems sort of unimplementable, given that there doesn't seem to be much funding around it. What we have seen from the U.S. so far, even with this recent surge of high-level officials coming to the continent, is still very much the same tone, I think, of charity first and partnership second.

  My worry is that the strategy will just reproduce the same old dynamics, rather than bring about genuine partnership between the U.S. and various African nations.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Cameron Hudson, Secretary Blinken specifically uses the words partnership and tries to make a point that the U.S. will be seeing Africa as an important player on every single major aspect facing the world today.

  That's at least what he says.

  Cameron Hudson, Center for Strategic and International Studies: Well, right, but the problem is, of course, that saying it doesn't make it so.

  And I think that we have to look at where decisions are being made and whether or not African voices are being included in those decision rooms, whether it's the chamber of the U.N. Security Council, or the executive boardroom of the World Bank, or, frankly, behind closed doors at a G7 summit, where, just this last June, G7 leaders decided on the devastating and crippling sanctions campaign against Russia, which has severely impacted Africans' ability to purchase and import grain and fertilizer from Russia.

  So we're seeing already in this administration Africans not being included where those decisions are being made. So I, of course, like the idea that we are going to give greater voice to the 54 countries of Africa, 1.4 billion people, but, right now, we're not seeing the Biden administration live up to the promise it made just yesterday.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Kholood Khair, let's look at Russia's influence.

  How have you seen Russia focus its influence especially on the African Union and also in particular African leaders?

• Kholood Khair:

  Well, I think this is where Russia's strategy on Africa seems to vary slightly from the U.S.'.

  Russia is not interested in engaging on any domestic policies in this country if they don't directly impact Russia's interests. So, for example, Russia's influence in — across the Sahel, in countries like Sudan, and Central African Republic, and Mali, and going Westward into Burkina Faso, it's linked to their ability to extract gold and other commodities which will help it fuel its war against Ukraine.

  So, it's — Russia is not invested in the inner workings of those countries in anything beyond how it will impact those extractives. It's sort of cherry-picking the country's it feels are going to be important. It's not looking for broader level of interest related to, for example, rule of law or even changing some of the trading elements that Africa has with other partners.

  It is actually aiming for a lot less. And, by that token, it can actually achieve a lot more.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Aiming for a lot less, Cameron Hudson, but also aiming for military, or at least a paramilitary relationship.

  How has Russia used the Wagner Group? This is a paramilitary group largely controlled by the Kremlin to expand its influence in many of those countries that Kholood Khair just mentioned.

• Cameron Hudson:

  Well, what we see about Russia's involvement here is really a kind of inside-outside approach.

  So, of course, it's approaching through visits like Foreign Minister Lavrov, but then it uses the Wagner Group in kind of unofficial capacities, working with beleaguered leaders on the continent, warlord leaders, militia leaders, looking for a way in.

  Oftentimes, these sort of side deals that they cut are self-financed, because Wagner earns rights to mineral extraction in the country. And so what Russia has been able to do with Wagner is really prop up leaders in their orbit and to keep Western interests, Western values at bay for just a little bit longer.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Kholood Khair, it's not, of course, just U.S. and Russia. China has spent billions and billions of dollars, especially on African infrastructure.

  How successful have Chinese efforts to increase its influence in Africa been?

• Kholood Khair:

  China thinks in terms of 1,000-year strategies. It does not think in terms of four- to five-year administrations or, at a maximum, 10 years.

  So they can afford to be a lot more patient than we have seen the U.S. and even to some extent Russia being, particularly after the invasion of Ukraine. For China, it's such a broad range of investments and interests across the continent. But they have always been quite pragmatic, in terms of who they support and who they don't.

  And this really sets China and, to some extent, Russia apart from the U.S., in terms of they don't necessarily have favorites that they stick by through thick and thin. They are much more able to navigate the changes within the continent.

  And, more importantly, they know when to step back, particularly China, at times of fraught tensions.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And, Cameron Hudson, finally, let's take us back to Antony Blinken's speech.

  He has made a specific point repeatedly that the U.S. is not forcing African countries to choose between the U.S. and China or the U.S. and Russia, but, rather, providing a choice.

  Is that what the U.S. is doing?

• Cameron Hudson:

  Well, I think they're providing a choice, so long as the choice is the United States.

  What we saw in Secretary Blinken's speech wasn't just the providing of a choice. It was the making of an argument as to why choosing a relationship with Washington was going to be beneficial to the people, to the leadership and to the continent as a whole.

  I think that what's interesting is that we have seen in recent months and years the Chinese and the Russians adopting the same sort of language of partnership, of treating Africans as equals, Russia and China both kind of painting the United States and the European countries as what it calls this golden billion, this idea that the developed north and industrialized north of wealthy countries is somehow controlling 90 percent of the world's resources and assets, and so really pitting, I think, Africa, against Washington and the West as the sort of haves and have-not, and continuing that dynamic, even with the release of this strategy today.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Cameron Hudson, Kholood Khair, thank you very much to you both.

• Cameron Hudson:

  Thank you.