Inside Biden-Harris White House and Africa as 2021 ends: Two big challenges

As the number one U.S.-Africa news organization headquartered in Washington, District of Columbia, our team at Today News Africa has monitored the Biden administration's ties and interactions with Africa very closely from the very first day on January 20, 2021.

We have had many private and public talks with senior administration officials, attended almost all background calls, press briefings, press updates, and pressed the administration on key issues about U.S.-Africa ties and interactions.

In the past 11 months, three key areas have dominated U.S.-Africa relationship: COVID-19 and vaccines, Ethiopia and the war, and the travel ban due to the Omicron variant. There have been several other focuses, including Proper Africa, strengthening democracy and human rights, peace and security on the continent, as well as Secretary of State Antony J.Blinken's visit recently.

Of those, Ethiopia and the travel ban have recently dominated the news coverage and they are two key areas that are very important going into 2022.

One of them, the travel ban, can easily be resolved right now with President Biden's executive order. The Omicron variant is everywhere in the United States and in more than 100 countries around the world, and the decision to keep a travel ban on only African nations is indefensible, not based on any science President Biden pledged to follow, and appears to be discriminatory.

The other issue, Ethiopia, is so important that failure there may send a strong message that the United States may well be in decline, and China is gradually becoming more and more important. On Ethiopia, two key lawmakers are even urging President Biden to change course on AGOA.

Success in Ethiopia would mean good faith negotiations are successfully carried out and completed, the end of the war, peace and security for all Ethiopians, including the people in Tigray, access to humanitarian aid, coordinated messaging by administration officials, less tweets by Samantha J. Power. It would also mean human rights abusers are prosecuted, and held to account, and democracy and the will of the people are preserved.

Failure in Ethiopia would mean the war continues, the United States evacuates its citizens, human rights abusers are untouched, more people die, more people go hungry, no negotiations take place, the Horn of Africa country falls into chaos. That would send a message that the United States is no longer as important as it once was. Failure would also mean the administration not listening to divergent voices, including from the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. And that is our take today.

Simon Ateba, Publisher and White House Correspondent for Today News Africa in Washington.

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