Biden arrives Angola for long-awaited Africa visit amid backlash over son’s pardon

President Joe Biden arrived in Angola yesterday for his long-awaited first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa as thousands lined the streets in the capital, Luanda to welcome him.

Biden first stopped in the Atlantic Ocean island of Cape Verde for a brief meeting with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva. In Angola, Biden plans to meet with Angolan President João Lourenço, visit the National Slavery Museum and travel to the port city of Lobito for a look at the rail project.

His visit comes with weeks left in his presidency, as Republican Donald Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20.

Biden promised to visit Africa last year after reviving the U.S.-Africa Summit in December 2022. The trip was pushed to 2024 and delayed in October because of Hurricane Milton, reinforcing a sentiment among Africans that their continent is low priority for Washington.

The last U.S. president to visit Africa was Barack Obama in 2015. Biden did attend a United Nations climate summit in Egypt in North Africa in 2022.

Meanwhile, Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter, made public in a lengthy statement late Sunday, has some former senior aides fuming. Some are wondering why the president chose to unequivocally claim on multiple occasions that he would never take such a step.

The White House has defended Biden’s pardon of his son, after repeatedly insisting he had no plans to grant such executive clemency.

The sweeping pardon covers any potential federal crimes that 54-year-old Hunter may have committed over the course of a decade.

Republicans have lambasted the move, with President-elect Donald Trump calling it “an abuse and miscarriage of justice”.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden had “wrestled” over the decision during the family’s Thanksgiving break on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, at the weekend.

The Democratic president issued the pardon on Sunday evening before heading off on an official trip to Africa.