U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced nearly $533 million in humanitarian aid to Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Lake Chad Basin, during a speech Tuesday that outlined the status of the United States’ relationship with Africa and also jabbed aggressively at China’s recent expansion of influence on the continent.
The speech comes as Tillerson departs for a five-nation, week-long visit to Africa, which will be his first visit to the continent as a U.S. government official.
While famine was largely avoided in the region last year because of a scaled-up humanitarian response, millions are still in need of aid because of drought and conflict. In South Sudan alone, an estimated 9,000 people will lose access to food every day from now until April, according to Mercy Corps. During the speech at George Mason University, Tillerson acknowledged the importance of finding long-term diplomatic solutions to the conflicts in the region in order to ease the humanitarian crises.
Tillerson also used the speech to turn blame on the Chinese for putting African countries into high levels of debt that endanger their long-term economic and political stability. China is Africa’s largest trading partner, and American exports to Africa fell from $38 billion to $22 billion between 2014 and 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.