WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is welcome to Kenyan President William Ruto to the White House for a three-day state visit as an East African nation prepares to send forces to Haiti as part of the UN-led effort to try to calm a spiraling security crisis in the Caribbean country.
About 1,000 Kenyan police officers are expected to arrive in Haiti soon as part of a multilateral security support mission aimed at helping to crack down on gang violence. Other countries expected to support Kenyan forces include the Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Bangladesh.
For years, the United States has collaborated with Kenya on counterterrorism efforts in Africa, including combating extremist group al-Shabab. Kenya participated in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and an international maritime working group launched by the Biden administration in December in response to Houthi attacks on ships operating in the Red Sea.
Ruto’s decision to deploy police forces to Haiti was hailed by a senior Biden administration official as an “unprecedented undertaking” and a demonstration of Kenya’s global leadership.
Kenya is the first African nation since 2008 to be honored by the US with a state visit.
“This is a deep and broad partnership,” White House principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said this week. He added that it starts with combating terrorism in Kenya’s own region of Africa and extends to “becoming a provider of liquid security in our country”. own hemisphere” with the upcoming deployment in Haiti.
O state visit opens as the two leaders attend a White House meeting with US CEOs in the afternoon. Biden and Ruto will hold formal talks and a joint press conference on Thursday, ahead of a state dinner. Ruto will also attend an event at the United States Chamber of Commerce with Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday.
Ruto began his US visit in Atlanta, where he visited The King Center, met NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal and stopped by Tyler Perry Studios.
The US and Kenya celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations. White House officials said the leaders’ agenda will include trade and investment, technological innovation, climate and clean energy, and health and security.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the two countries would announce “substantial commitments” to elevate Kenya’s technology sector. Kenya is home to Google and Microsoft offices and has positioned itself as the technology hub of East Africa, known as the Silicon Savanna.
Biden brought together dozens of African leaders in Washington in December 2022 to argue that the United States under his watch was “fully engaged” in Africa’s future and had disbursed billions in promised government funding and private investment on the continent in health, infrastructure, structures, business and technology. The Democrat also promised to visit Sub-Saharan Africa in 2023.
But other priorities got in the way last year, including the Israel-Hamas war and Biden’s long battle with Republicans to renew funding for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Biden’s promised visit to Africa never materialized.
The United States has lagged well behind rival China in investment in Africa, which has become a key battleground in the competition between great powers.
Biden and his advisers say they expect strong economic competition with Beijing in Africa, but have sought to argue that Washington is a much more reliable partner in Africa in the long term.
To that end, Biden moved early in his presidency to devote more attention to Africa than his more recent predecessors, including welcoming nearly 50 leaders to the U.S.-Africa leaders’ summit in December 2022. But since the summit, say analysts, management involvement has stopped.
Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa Program, noted that Biden has hosted just one African leader, President of Angola, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, for White House talks since the summit.
“This visit today feels a bit like a fig leaf, not just for Kenyans but for Africa in general, and a kind of placeholder for the administration to say: All these things that we said at the beginning of the administration, they all remain true,” Hudson said.
Ruto intends to use the visit to strengthen his position on the world stage and believes that sending Kenyan police to Haiti will greatly contribute to that broader objective, said Macharia Munene, professor of international relations at the United States-Africa International University. .
“Ruto would like to be recognized, especially in the West, as the leader of Africans. And this type of recognition increases that desire,” said Munene.
Ruto said that with the mission to Haiti, Kenya’s aim is to “formulate viable strategies that lead to long-term solutions” in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti has suffered from poverty, political instability and natural disasters for decades. The US agreed to provide direct financial assistance to the UN-supported mission, along with training, logistical and material support.
But Ruto’s plan to involve Kenyan police in a crisis thousands of kilometers away has also encountered some opposition in Nairobi, including legal challenges aimed at blocking the deployment of police forces.
International intervention in Haiti has a complicated history. A UN-approved stabilization mission to Haiti, which began in June 2004, was hampered by a sexual abuse scandal and the introduction of cholera, which killed nearly 10,000 people. The mission ended in October 2017.
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Associated Press writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya, Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta and Seung Min Kim aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.
