US not trying to ‘outdo’ world powers in Africa: Blinken

The United States is seeking a “true partnership” with Africa and not trying to “outdo” other world powers in vying for influence on the continent, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. 

Blinken outlined the US government’s new Africa strategy as he visited South Africa in the first stop of a three-nation trip to the continent.

The visit followed hot on the heels of an extensive African tour by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Yet Blinken said the United States did not see the region as the “latest playing field in a competition between great powers”.

“Our commitment to a stronger partnership with Africa is not about trying to outdo anyone else,” the top US diplomat told a press briefing in the capital, Pretoria, alongside his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor.

South Africa, a leader in the developing world, has remained neutral in the Ukraine war.

Pretoria has refused to join Western calls to condemn Moscow, which had opposed apartheid before the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

Pandor said no one in South Africa supported war and described Russia as a “negligible economic partner” but added she was glad the United States was not asking her country to take sides.