President Joe Biden said Thursday he planned to visit sub-Saharan Africa next year, the first U.S. president to travel there in a decade.
He announced the trip — still unscheduled — as he wrapped up a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit by stressing he’s serious about increasing U.S. attention to the growing continent.
“We’re all going to be seeing you and you’re going to see a lot of us,” Biden told a summit of African leaders.
“ I’m looking forward to seeing you in your home countries,” the US President said near the end of the three=day summit .
Biden did not specify a date or destinations, saying, “Some of you invited me to your countries. I said, be careful what you wish for, because I may show up.”
Biden would be the first US president to visit since Barack Obama went in July 2015 to Kenya and Ethiopia.
Obama’s successor Donald Trump made little secret of his lack of interest in sub-Saharan Africa and was the first president in four decades not to visit while in office.
Biden on Thursday formally announced that he supports the African Union becoming a permanent member of the Group of 20 nations. He also announced plans to spend $2 billion to help bolster food security on the continent and $165 million to help African nations carry out peaceful and transparent elections next year.
Those announcements came after Biden this week detailed his administration’s commitment to spend $55 billion on government programming in Africa over the next three years, over and above the billions that American private companies would invest.
“Our eyes are fixed squarely on the future,” Biden said.
The elections-funding announcement came after Biden met on Wednesday with a small group of leaders whose countries have big votes in the new year.
Those leaders: Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Liberia President George Manneh Weah, Madagascar President Andry Nirina Rajoelina, Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari and Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio.
