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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We've been talking about the historic first of the former President being indicted. Vice President Kamala Harris is making history of her own this week. She, as the first African American US Vice President, is visiting three countries in Africa--Ghana, Zambia, and Tanzania. The trip is being described largely as part of the Biden administration's effort to counter the influence of China in Africa, also Russia, but China does a lot of economic development there and has been focused on Africa for decades as a focal point of building its global influence.

Here is Vice President Harris in Ghana this week, seeming to assure the continent that the US is in that game, too.

US Vice President Kamala Harris: "We must invest in the African ingenuity and creativity, which will unlock incredible economic growth and opportunities, not only for the people of the 54 countries that make up this diverse continent, but for the American people and people around the world."

Brian Lehrer: Vice President Harris in Ghana this week. With us now, Yinka Adegoke, editor of Semafor Africa, part of the recently launched global news organization Semafor, co-founded by former New York Times columnist and BuzzFeed editor, Ben Smith and others. Yinka was last with us in December, after a Biden plus African leaders summit in Washington. Yinka, thanks for coming on with us again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Yinka Adegoke: Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Our phones are open in this segment, especially for any listeners with ties to the three countries the Vice President has been visiting this week, Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia, but we can also open it to anyone with ties to any of the 54 countries on the continent because Harris's message is continent-wide, as we heard in that clip, so 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

If you're originally from anywhere there, what would your countries of origin most want or need from the United States? How do you see the presence of China or Russia for better or worse right now, or the presence of the US by comparison, and what do you think the US wants from them? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Our phones are open for you.

Yinka, why did Kamala Harris go to Africa so soon after the summit in DC with African leaders?

Yinka Adegoke: Well, it's very clear that the Biden administration wants to make it really clear that they are serious about Africa. That's the summit, which happened in December, as you said when we spoke last time, was the first one in about eight years, where African presidents were in the United States and meeting the President.

Brian Lehrer: Well, sure. Certainly, during the Trump administration, he famously referred to them asshole countries.

Yinka Adegoke: Right, exactly. The Biden administration has felt from day one that they needed to fix that. You might think, "Well, what did they want from Africa?" Well, there's a lot of things going on here. As you've mentioned, we all are very much aware of how the United States has become increasingly concerned about the rise of China, particularly in terms of economic and political influence around the world.

China has spent the last couple of decades really quietly investing and, frankly, supporting a lot of African countries in doing everything, from building infrastructure to investing in all kinds of important elements of what you would need to build a country, particularly because many of these countries, particularly the smaller ones, are unable to raise the kinds of loans and funding you need to to build infrastructure. China has been very, very supportive in the last few years. Now, the concern for the United States has been that it hasn't just been about building the bridge and going away, it's been about increasing China's influence beyond just being an economic partner.

At the same time, the United States has also seen the rise of Russia, particularly in the last few years, which comes in through what you might call the security door. The Russia sends over what you might say directly, not officially, the Wagner military groups, who work in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Central African Republic, where they're effectively in Central African Republic, in particular, almost running these countries in partnership with the government. There are lots of concerns if you're in the White House, in the State Department, about how the United States is perceived.

Frankly, it's not just about Kamala Harris. We've been tracking this at Semafor Africa, keeping track of what the US has been doing. There have been whitened quite a jump in the number of US officials visiting the continent. I think we've counted 16 countries so far, with various levels of seniority within various departments of the US government. They're having to take this seriously, because China has made it clear that Africa is important to it, as well.

Brian Lehrer: Well, take me one step further into this from a Washington perspective. Let's say China does dominate in its relationship with African countries, through helping with economic development or anything else. The US may therefore have weaker relations with African countries, less influence, let's say, over their governments, but how does that hurt Americans? How does that affect Americans, one way or another?

Yinka Adegoke: Well, it's a very fair question. It doesn't appear on the face of it to affect an American on a day-to-day basis, but it will over the longer term. You have to remember that Africa is, frankly, going to be the continent that keeps on producing the most people on the planet as we go forward. The future of the planet is in Africa. It's just something you hear all the time, but it's just demographically true. One in four people on the planet by 2050 will be African. A lot of young workers are going to come from this continent.

Now, if everybody has switched off from the United States and focused just on, I don't know, Chinese education, because plenty of people are going to Chinese universities as well now, or Chinese ways of doing things, that kind of cuts the United States out over the longer term. It may not affect people today, but for the size of investment that's required to support countries and to avoid security issues that come from people not being unemployed, and not having opportunities, it's worth the investment for the United States to work with these countries, and to partner with them and not so much to go there and tell people what to do, or any of that kind of, be able to actually work with countries and support their development.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here is the Namina in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC, Namina. Hi there.

Namina: Good morning, Brian, my favorite guy in the whole wide world. I'm 65, and I'm from Sierra Leone, West Africa that was colonized by the British. I am a child of that act. For me, I'm somebody's mother, and I look at it where you see China, Russia, America, they fighting amongst themselves to go into this continent. Your guest just said something about Africa it's going to produce more workers and more of the people in the world. It has been like that. It's just that it's not been talked about, but it's been like that. Everywhere you go, it's African hands, helping, building.

Now you have all these powerful, super powerful countries fighting to go into this little bit of countries in Africa. For what? I would want somebody, one leader Kamala Harris to go and say, "Okay, you know what, there's a primary school in Sierra Leone. It's rundown. Let's build it right away. Let's give money right away. Right away." The British were there. They took and they took and they took and they took. What are they going for? That's my question, and I want to leave it for the host. I would love for them to go and fix it.

After the Blood Diamonds War, there are children that have no legs. They cut them, and let them go into the bushes and fought war, and they took diamonds. These children are being left. What are these people going to do? Send people to rehabilitate them. We rehabilitate them so that they don't come out and fight. This is my question to your guest, what are these leaders-- What do you want? What are they fighting for to go into this country? What do they want?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Namina. Thank you very much. Yinka?

Yinka Adegoke: Thanks for that question. To be fair to Kamala Harris, she didn't come empty-handed. She also offered a billion dollars towards various women's programs across the continent, but also to that point about diamonds and everything else, and to remind your listeners that the reason Russia is there, and arguably the Chinese as well, is also because of the minerals that are available on the continent.

In the past, we've focused very much on the carbon lead source of energy, and now as the whole world tries to move to a green economy, many of those same minerals are also on the continent, be it cobalt, be it copper. Now the big challenge is if you're America is this lots of concern about how much control the Chinese have over the supply chain or some of these really valuable minerals because again, that's where the next battle is unfolding.

Brian Lehrer: What battle is that? Minerals that are relevant to renewable energy?

Yinka Adegoke: Absolutely, relevant to the batteries that are going to be your electric vehicles. They're going to be in your phones, and everything else. To also come back to the really important points about what you might call the social aspects of this, it is really down to African leaders at the end of the day to be quite clear about this, to ensure that even if you are going to come and extract minerals or work with the country to develop industry built around these minerals, that you also involved in programs.

As your listener said there, involved in education, involved in skills development, just human development in general, that is not just the kind of people bringing in workers or expertise, and then taking out these minerals, and leaving these places worse off than they were, because frankly, we often talk about the end of colonial period of the '60s and the '70s, but there isn't much difference, even if you're not officially colonizing a country, if all you do is just extract and you don't actually work with those countries to help develop them as well.

Brian Lehrer: We're talking about Vice President Kamala Harris's trip to Africa this week with our guest who is the editor of Semafor Africa. Elijah in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Elijah: Yes. Hi, Brian. How are you and your guest?

Yinka Adegoke: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Doing okay. I think I just gave a title but not your name again. It's Yinka Adegoke, just for the record. Elijah, go ahead.

Elijah: Yes. Brian, I have one question for your guest about the currency, because in Africa, as you know, the dollar is much, much higher, and it's much easier for the African to do business with China because the currency is so low. How are they going to help so we can do the exchange with the African, to travel, come to United States, buy stuff, because, as I say, it's so much easy for the African to go to China, buy stuff, and taking it back to Africa?

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Yes, because of the exchange rate, easier for Africans to travel to China. Is that your understanding, Yinka?

Yinka Adegoke: Well, in terms of travel, there's also the issue of visas as well, which is a whole nother part of our conversation, but on the purely economic angle of this discussion which your listener just brought up there, it's a huge one. What's really interesting to me is the way it's a big issue, regardless of the size of the African economy, regardless of the nature of the economy, it really is. So many countries are struggling with the ability to, if you like, manage and control their economies, due to the lack of what is often called a Forex, foreign exchange. The availability of hard currency of dollars.

You see that even in an economy like Kenya right now, it's a big issue. It's always been an issue in my country, Nigeria, where the value of the dollar pretty much dictates how things go in your country, regardless of whether you're able to trade with the United States or not, actually. It's not even just about going into the United States, trading directly with the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Which affects people in their homes.

Yinka Adegoke: It affects people on a day-to-day basis. It's often at the heart of many of the stories that we cover at Semafor Africa, so many governments struggle with this.

Brian Lehrer: Also relevant to this, if we're talking about the US and China competing with each other in Africa, the Foreign Policy magazine story on Vice President's trip, says in one of its lines, "Ghana and Zambia, two economies that until recently could have been held up as shell pieces of Chinese-driven development are sinking in debt, in part, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, and shocks from the Russia-Ukraine war." Does that taint China in the eyes and the daily experience of people in these two countries that the Vice President is visiting?

Yinka Adegoke: Honestly, I don't think so. Listen, every country is different. Zambia had an emphasis on this because they had a kind of interest in history with Chinese industry and Chinese development there for a little bit longer than a few other countries. Some of it has been a little bit controversial, but right now, there's a very heated debates, and in fact, even Kamala Harris brought this up yesterday with the President of Zambia. China never gets mentioned, by the way, it's just a whole--

Brian Lehrer: Not from her lips, not from the VP's lips.

Yinka Adegoke: Exactly. It's always about this issue of Chinese debts that Zambia has, and Zambia is going through this period where it's really trying to get its debts restructured, which is to lower the debt. The Chinese are basically saying, "Well, if we have to lower our debt, then the World Bank should do the same thing." The World Bank is saying, "Well, we're not structured that way." Anyway, this is all very boring in terms of the detail of it, but the other point is, it's put into the fore this idea that the Chinese have some power in the way of making things a little bit less stressful.

You look at a country like Ghana, Chinese debt is there, but it's relatively small. The emphasis of the conversation, particularly with the last administration, the Trump administration on Chinese debt in Africa, has just been overplayed as part of the conversation because it was a good way to frame China as the bad guys. It's there. It's real, and there are concerns, but it's not the biggest part of the debt in most countries.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Bonsu in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bonsu.

Bonsu: Good morning, Brian and your guests. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. Thank you.

Bonsu: Yes. Well, the 2024 political season coming up. This is what I see the Vice President's trip to Africa. It helps her politically in terms of foreign policy on a political resume, but it doesn't help especially my country where I was born and raised up in Ghana. It doesn't help the country. That trip doesn't help the country. It rather helps the Vice President's political resume. That's how I see it. I don't know if you really know the specifics, the reason why she went to Africa, I don't know, but this is what I see.

Yinka Adegoke: I have views on this, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Bonsu, thank you. Go ahead, Yinka.

Yinka Adegoke: I actually partly agree with your guest there, Bonsu. I think I even tweeted something about this that it was the first time I noticed, seeing Vice President Harris in Ghana, was the first time I noticed her look relaxed in a long time as Vice President. She looked at ease, and the same thing in Tanzania, same thing in Zambia. It definitely has

been good for her, but I would push back on the idea that this is of no help or no use to Ghana specifically.

These visits are always ceremonial, and they say things that they could say anywhere. They also put the country on the map. I can tell you that politicians are probably watching in a country like my country, like Nigeria now watching Ghana. Why are they going to Ghana, but they're not coming to Nigeria. This stuff matters. This is still the largest economy in the world with huge influence. [crosstalk] That's the way things go.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. Do you think that it matters either politically in any of the countries she visited or elsewhere on the continent, or just emotionally to any of the people in any of those countries, the fact that she is the first African American Vice President of the United States making a trip to Africa given the history?

Yinka Adegoke: Yes. I think it would depend on the political stakes in each country. I think it's a very good look for President Hichilema in Zambia, someone who went through a very difficult run up to becoming President himself. It's good for President Samia in Tanzania. I think President Akufo-Addo in Ghana is on his last term, so I don't know that it makes much of a difference politically, but it probably does make a difference in terms of the difficulty they're having economically right now. They're trying to get through a very difficult period with the economy and debts and all the rest of it. It's probably a good look from that point of view. I'm not very certain. The significance of the first African American Vice President-- I think that kind of thing is obviously very pleasant and everyone likes that. I think on a day-to-day basis, I'm not sure it makes a huge amount of difference, but it's still a nice ceremonial, nice good feel for people there.

Brian Lehrer: Yinka Adegoke, editor of Semafor Africa, always good to have you on. Thank you so much.

Yinka Adegoke: Thank you so much for having me.

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