James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
3:24 P.M. EST
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Good afternoon, everybody.
Q Good afternoon.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We are very thrilled to have our National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, with us today, who is going to give a preview of the African Leaders Summit that is happening later this week.
With that, Jake, this podium is yours.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thanks, Karine. And good afternoon, everybody. I'll take a few minutes to discuss the summit, which will unfold over the course of the next three days. And then I'd be happy to take your questions.
Tomorrow marks the start of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a three-day summit hosted by President Biden that will highlight how the United States and African nations are strengthening our partnerships to advance shared priorities.
Delegations from all 49 invited African countries and the African Union will attend, alongside members of civil society and the private sector. The President, the Vice President, and members of the Cabinet will have extensive engagement with leaders throughout the summit.
Tomorrow will kick off with a focus on the vital role of civil society and the strength of our African diaspora communities in the United States. It will feature of a range of sessions on topics from trade and investment, to health and climate, to peace, security, and governance, to space cooperation.
On Wednesday, the focus will be on increasing two-way trade and investment at the U.S.-Africa Business Forum. CEOs and private sector leadership from over 300 American and African companies will convene with the heads of delegation to catalyze investment in critical sectors, including health, infrastructure, energy, agribusiness, and digital.
The President will close the Business Forum on Wednesday with public remarks. Later in the day, he will host a small group of leaders at the White House for a discussion on upcoming presidential elections in 2023 in Africa and U.S. support for free, fair, and credible polls across the continent.
He will then host, Wednesday evening, all 50 heads of delegation and their spouses for a dinner here at the White House.
Thursday is dedicated to high-level discussions among leaders, with President Biden opening the day with a session on partnering on Agenda 2063, the African Union's strategic vision for the continent.
A working lunch by Vice President Harris will follow that session. And then the President will close the day with a discussion on food security and food systems resilience, which, as you all know, is a critical issue for our African partners, who have been disproportionately impacted by the rise in food and fertilizer prices and disruptions to global supply chains as a result of Russia's war against Ukraine.
Throughout the next three days and then beyond the next three days, we look forward to leveraging the best of America — a truly unrivaled set of tools across our government, our private sector, and civil society — to partner with and support African institutions, African citizens, and African nations to advance our shared goals.
The summit — just to take a step back — is rooted in the recognition that Africa is a key geopolitical player. The continent will shape the future not just of the African people but also the world. President Biden believes that U.S. collaboration with African leaders, as well as with civil society and business leaders and the diaspora, women, youth, is essential to unlocking the potential of this decisive decade.
As you know, the President intends to announce U.S. support for the African Union to join the G20 as a permanent member. It's past time for Africa to have permanent seats at the table in international organizations and initiatives. And the President also plans to underscore his commitment to U.N. Security Council reform, including support for a permanent member from the African continent.
Working closely with Congress, the U.S. will commit $55 billion to Africa over the course of the next three years across a wide range of sectors to tackle the core challenges of our time. These commitments build on the United States' longstanding leadership and partnership in develop- — development, economic growth, health, and security in Africa over the past three decades.
You'll be hearing a number of announcements over the coming days — specific deliverables in a number of different areas, new projects and initiatives, new funding streams. But our commitment to Africa extends well beyond all of that too. It's reflected in our decades of meaningful engagement, people-to-people ties, and high-quality investments in our shared future.
And, really, the spirit of this summit is not what we will do for African nations and peoples but what we will do with African nations and peoples.
And I will say one other thing. In the intensive consultations we've had with African leaders and African civil society and other voices in the run-up to this summit, the key question has been follow-through. "Okay, you're going to have the summit. What's going to happen once the summit concludes?" To that end, we will have a new Special Representative for U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Implementation.
The State Department plans to appoint Ambassador Johnnie Carson for this role. Ambassador Carson is very well known to people across the continent of Africa. He brings a wealth of experience to the position, having dedicated his 37-year career to diplomacy in Africa, and we are looking forward to working with him to ensure that the announcements that get made over the next three days are translated into durable actions that last well beyond the summit.
A last point — and thank you for your patience. As we ta- — as we approach the new year, I just want to take a moment to reflect on the depth and breadth of President Biden's foreign engagements over 2022.
From the Quad Summit in Tokyo to the historic NATO Summit in Madrid; to consequential G7 and G20 summits at critical geopolitical moments; to hosting, in separate summits, the leaders of the Americas, the Pacific Islands, ASEAN, and now, of course, the leaders of Africa, this year has marked one of the most high-paced, substantive periods of presidential engagement in foreign policy in recent history. And it's a profound demonstration of the President's approach to the world and a powerful expression of the ways in which a broad and diverse community of nations are working together to solve our shared challenges.
With that, I'd be happy to take your questions.
April.
Q Jake, a couple of questions. The same topics — trade, health, food security, and national security — have been in the topics of presidents from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama and now. Why are these same issues still on the table after all of these years? And what has been the arch of success — if you can measure it — from the Clinton years, when Africa was put on the table, and then George W. Bush being considered the President who did the most for Africa?
And then also, if you can talk about the lack that happened during the last four years, not focusing on Africa. Are you behind in some areas on Africa?
MR. SULLIVAN: Well, first, the topics you mentioned are the essential building bol- — blocks of healthy societies, healthy economies, healthy countries the world over — not just in Africa, but everywhere.
Health, economics, climate, peace, and security — these are not topics that get resolved in 4 years or 40 years. They are the topics upon which durable partnerships get built at a government-to-government level, business-to-business, and people-to-people.
So it should come as no surprise that the things that matter most to the people in communities across the continent — and, frankly, to people and communities across America — are going to be the top agenda items for the summit.
And in each of these areas, we feel that we do have a very strong record to stand on, as the United States dealing with Africa, whether it's in health and the remarkable advances we've made against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria; or, as President Biden will talk about, the support that we flowed to Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic and the work we are now doing to help Africa stand up its own capacity to manu- — manufacture vaccines and therapeutics going forward.
I could walk through each of the other areas — economics and trade, investment, climate — take — tackling the climate crisis. The President was just at an African COP in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he laid out a series of initiatives relating to adaptation in Africa.
But I will just say that we didn't set this agenda in a vacuum. We didn't send it — set it for the topics that matter the most to us. We set it in consultation with our African partners on the issues that matter most to them and to our shared future.
And I would say that we're never satisfied with the progress we've made, because there's always more work to do, more security to help bring about more mitigation of — of climate — of carbon emissions, more adaptation to the ravages of climate change, more lives to be saved through health initiatives.
But we feel we do enter this summit with some significant momentum around major investments that we have already made and will continue to make and with this announcement that, over the next three years, we will be devoting $55 billion to help address these top priorities in very specific, tangible ways in partnership with African nations.
So I think, by the end of this, what you will see is a genuine energy and a spirit of cooperation that will reflect the fact that the United States has unique assets and capabilities to bring to bear, and we're going to do everything to bring those to bear in this time period.
Q I want to follow up though on what I asked you. Did the United States lose ground with the continent, and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, in the past four years when Africa was not a focus?
MR. SULLIVAN: Look, anytime an administration chooses not to put as much energy or emphasis into a place, it obviously has some ramifications. But I have to say that since the President — since President Biden has come into office, whether it's through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, or it's through the work we've done on COVID-19, or it's through the significant announcements that we've made at both of the last two Conferences of Parties on Climate Change, we believe that we are not coming into this summit from a standing start, we're coming into this summit with a head of steam around a set of issues that this summit, I think, is going to kick into a higher gear. And that is going to put us in a position not just for us to succeed over the course of next year or the following year, but really over the course of this decisive decade.
And I think you will see a certain buoyancy, a certain momentum, a certain enthusiasm emanating from the course of this summit, because this isn't all just emerging out of thin air, it's emerging out of a very hard — ver- — very much hard work over the course of the past two years.
Yeah.
Q Jake, a couple questions about your deputy's engagements in Asia right now. First of all, just with the China meetings that are taking place with the vice foreign minister, was there — was there any discussion about any support that the U.S. can provide to China as they unravel the zero-COVID policy around vaccines, around support for their medical system generally?
MR. SULLIVAN: So the topic of COVID-19 and the ways in which all countries, including China, are dealing with this pandemic was on the agenda at these meetings, but I am going to refrain from getting into details of what those discussions entailed because I want to give an opportunity for us to be able to have those conversations in sensitive diplomatic channels. And we'll see what, if anything, comes out of it.
Q Okay. And then one more on that trip. I understand that Laura Rosenberger is also meeting with the Japanese delegation. Was there any discussion about an agreement between the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands about restricting this chipmaking equipment from going to China?
MR. SULLIVAN: I'm going to be your favorite person ever at the podium because I'm going to give a very similar answer, which is that, of course, we have consultations with all of our allies and partners, especially those with a deep interest in the issue of semiconductor technologies, about the logic behind our own tailored restrictions and about what the landscape looks like.
We've had those conversations with both Japan and the Netherlands and with other countries as well, and I'm not going to get ahead of any announcements. I will just say that we are very pleased with the candor, the substance, and the intensity of the discussions that are taking place across a broad range of countries who share our concerns, and would like to see broad alignment as we go forward.
Q And do you have an agreement in principle with those countries? Just quickly.
MR. SULLIVAN: Again, I'm not going to get ahead of anything. I'm just going to say that it is, of course, the case that a hallmark of the Biden administration has been alignment with allies and partners on every key foreign policy issue we confront. This is a priority for us. Alignment is a priority for us. We're working towards that. And I'll leave any announcements to when they're ripe to be made publicly from this podium or elsewhere.
Yeah.
Q Thanks, Jake. There's a meeting today about the next steps in trying to bring Paul Whelan home. Are you part of that meeting? What can you tell us about that meeting? And the State Department said today that the U.S. is going to be creative in finding ways to get Paul Whelan released. What does that mean?
MR. SULLIVAN: So, members of my team and the State Department met with Elizabeth Whelan this morning virtually, over Zoom. I wasn't a part of it today, although I did participate in the conversation the President had with Elizabeth a few days ago, where they too were brainstorming and talking through ideas about how to go forward.
You'll understand that I can't get into the specifics of the kinds of things that we are contemplating to try to ensure that we get Paul home as soon as we can. I will just say that the conversations with Paul Whelan's family have been substantive. They have had a number of very good questions and also a number of suggestions that they've put forward. And we have been working to figure out what it is going to take to ultimately secure his freedom and how we can go about getting that and being able to sit down with the Russians and work out a deal.
The specifics of that are something that really have to be kept in the sensitive channels — the sensitive conversations we have with the Whelan family and then the sensitive channels that we have with the Russian government.
But we are bound and determined to ensure that we work through a successful method of securing Paul Whelan's release at the earliest possible opportunity.
Q But if the U.S. doesn't have a prisoner in custody that Russia would be willing to make a trade for, what else could you do? Is there a policy that the U.S. would be willing to change in order to get Russia to accept some kind of a deal?
MR. SULLIVAN: I can't really answer a question as general as that. I mean, if the implication is "Are we going to take a different approach to Ukraine" or something like that, the answer is, no, we're not going to take a different approach to Ukraine.
We believe that there are plays that we can continue to try to run, things that we have had in motion that we are still working on that could potentially lead to a positive result here. Again, because of the sensitivity of these issues, I don't want to go into detail on them, but we are going to keep working at this.
The big challenge we had over the course of the past several months is that what Russia was asking for to secure Paul Whelan's release was not something that we had to be able to give. That is a problem we are trying to solve. We have various ways that we are working through solutions, and we will be endeavoring on a daily basis, from the President on down, to finally develop a formula that works.
And that's as far as I can go today, but I will just reinforce that our commitment to this is absolutely rock solid, intense. And this is as high a priority as the President has.
Yeah.
