Vice President Harris announced plans to boost U.S. trade and investment with Tanzania on Thursday during her visit to that country.
Harris is on the second leg of a three-nation tour on the continent of Africa. She arrived in Ghana on Sunday and continued her visit there through Wednesday. She then traveled to Tanzania where she’ll stay until Friday. Her final stop will be in Zambia on Friday and Saturday. The Vice President has a personal connection to Zambia as she visited her grandfather who was working there when she was a young girl.
Harris, the United States’ first woman Vice President, met Thursday with Tanzania’s first woman President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam.
“Working together, it is our shared goal to increase economic investment in Tanzania and strengthen our economic ties,” Harris said during brief remarks to the media before she and Hassan went into a private discussion session.
Harris listed a number of initiatives, including a new memorandum of understanding between the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) and the government of Tanzania. That agreement is aimed at facilitating up to $500 million in financing to help U.S. companies export goods and services to Tanzania involving infrastructure, transportation, digital technology, climate and energy security, and power generation.
The Vice President also encouraged Tanzania’s moves toward a more inclusive government. Standing alongside Hassan, Harris cited recent progress in the country, including lifting a ban on opposition rallies and encouraging expanded press freedom, calling them “important and meaningful steps” toward democratic reforms.
Harris’ visit is part of a concerted effort to broaden U.S. outreach at a time when China and Russia have entrenched interests of their own in Africa. The Vice President’s travel to the continent comes one month after First Lady Jill Biden visited the African nations of Namibia and Kenya.
In December, President Biden wrapped the U.S.-Africa Summit at the White House by announcing to the leaders of 49 African nations that he intends to visit the continent sometime in the future, though he was not specific about which nations he would visit, or when he would make the trip.
