Envoy ahoy!

Secretary of state Blinken to unveil new US strategy in Africa trip countering Russia and China

By Julian Pecquet

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Posted on July 29, 2022 23:24

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Nigeria © Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, attend a news conference at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja, Nigeria, November 18, 2021. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS
Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, attend a news conference at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja, Nigeria, November 18, 2021. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed on a three-country tour of Africa following stops in Cambodia and the Philippines amid rising US tensions with China and Russia around the globe.

Washington’s top diplomat will start his tour on 7 August in South Africa, where he will unveil a long-delayed new US strategy for sub-Saharan Africa that National Security Council special adviser Judd Devermont has been working on since last year. Then he is off to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to help calm rising tensions between the two neighbours in eastern Congo, as The Africa Report first revealed on 27 July.

This is only Blinken’s third trip to Africa following his visit to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal in November and Algeria and Morocco in March. In addition to assistant secretary of state for African affairs Molly Phee, he will be accompanied by undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment Jose Fernandez, US Trade and Development Association director Enoh Ebong and the new head of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

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