The United States raises security relations with Kenya in a state visit

The United States will designate Kenya as its first major non-NATO ally in sub-Saharan Africa, the White House said as President Joe Biden hosted President William Ruto on a state visit on Thursday.

The important strategic move signals the shift of U.S. security cooperation toward East Africa just as U.S. troops prepare to leave Niger, leaving a void that Russian forces have begun to fill.

The designation gives non-members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization access to military and financial advantages enjoyed by NATO members, but without the mutual defense agreement that holds NATO together. A senior administration official told reporters Wednesday night that Biden would brief Congress on the designation, which will take 30 days to take effect.

The official said the move aims to “elevate and really recognize that Kenya is already a global partner of ours.”

Meanwhile, Ruto and Biden are using their day-long deliberations to refine Kenya’s plan to send 1,000 security personnel to the fragile and chaotic Caribbean nation of Haiti. The initiative, for which the United States has pledged $300 million in support, faces tough political and legal challenges in Kenya. The mission was also delayed when armed Haitian gangs took control while the nation’s leader, Ariel Henry, was visiting Kenya in March. Henry resigned in April and has not returned to the island.

The official said Ruto would meet Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss the mission, but promised there would be no progress.

“This is definitely an area of ​​continued collaboration,” the official said.

And on Thursday the White House also unveiled a series of security-related agreements, including military training and exercise opportunities, refugee management assistance, U.S. investments in Kenya’s security sector, counterterrorism efforts including increased exchange information and, in addition to all this, 16 helicopters and 150 armored vehicles.

From bombs to chocolates

Washington also made commitments worth millions of dollars for a series of efforts that the United States considers key to development. These include areas such as democracy, health, education, arts and culture, climate management, trade, technology and the one issue Ruto said was his top priority on his four-day tour of the United States: working to restructure crippling debt. of African nations to the world’s largest creditor, China.

But missing from the long list of American promises were the road, bridge and railroad projects that African leaders have long said they need to keep up with their expanding populations. For them, they turn to China’s growing Belt and Road Initiative, which sees the African continent as the biggest beneficiary of its massive trillion-dollar global project.

This, analysts say, represents Africa’s new stance as its young democracies mature, less than a century after liberation from colonialism: in a world of competition among the world’s great powers, they want to be somewhere in the middle.

“I think a lot of U.S. officials see this as a zero-sum game in this kind of great power competition to gain influence,” said Cameron Hudson, senior fellow at the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “African countries don’t see it that way. They actually see the benefit of being able to partner with China on trade, with Russia on security, and with Washington on development, and they don’t see any inconsistency in that approach.”

“And I think unless Washington becomes much more comfortable seeing its privileged relationships partner with other countries, it’s going to be very difficult for Washington to really chart a course forward with many of these countries,” he added.

This is the first state visit to the White House by an African leader in almost 16 years, and that importance was not lost on first lady Jill Biden, who, before her sixth state dinner, spoke of a pavilion with a roof crystal located under the stars. of a gospel choir and shag rugs and “the glow of candles in a space saturated with warm pinks and reds.”

White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford narrated a menu of cold green tomato soup with sweet onions and drizzled with white balsamic vinegar and fine California olive oil, butter-poached lobster and seasonal delicacies reminiscent of the American summer. She lavished words on the bed of kale, roasted corn, mashed corn, roasted turnips, sweet potatoes and squash, but she touched briefly on the one element that is considered the hallmark of an excellent Kenyan feast:

“Red meat,” he said.

Specifically, he said, it’s marinated and smoked ribs, placed on top of farmers’ market produce.

But it was the unnamed administration official who mocked the star who could eclipse all others on this bright night: the first and only American president of Kenyan descent.

When a reporter asked him if former President Barack Obama, born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, would appear at the lavish dinner, the official hesitated.

“I’m going to a meeting with another former president, President Trump,” the official finally responded. And then: “‘We’ll see what happens.'”

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