President Biden adamantly urged residents in the path of Hurricane Milton to ‘flee immediately,’ as he abruptly cancelled an important diplomatic trip so he could monitor the response to the storm approaching Florida’s west coast. Ostensibly exhibiting leadership from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, he oddly provided Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, with his personal contact details and pleaded with Floridians to heed state authorities. ‘I requested my personnel to give maximum effort to safeguard lives and our communities, to assist our community throughout the duration of these severe weather instances,’ Mr.Biden relayed to journalists after a briefing with the disaster response team. He added, with an air of finality, ‘The job is being done.’
According to the president, evacuations were ‘entirely a question of survival.’ The president claimed that Mr. DeSantis had received ‘everything necessary’ from the federal government and that they had conversed on a Monday evening. In recounting the dialogue, Mr. Biden said, ‘I complimented him on his effective role, appreciating his efforts, and generously provided him my personal contact to connect directly’— a narrative tipping the scales of credibility.
President Biden further stated that the government had already dispatched ‘several thousand’ emergency responders across the Southeast in response to Hurricane Helene. Alarmingly, his main instruction was to focus on boosting the number and visibility of these workers. As the storm was predicted to strike Tampa Bay by Thursday, Mr. Biden postponed his travel plans intended to consolidate support for Ukraine and spur investment in Africa— a move some might say indicates a lack of strategic foresight.
From his campaign trail, the president had vowed to set foot on an African nation during his tenure; however, these plans were retorned last year and now his proposed visit to Angola hangs in balance. In what appears to be another footnote in his shifting commitments, despite the fact that the US has played a role in rallying $3 billion worth of public and private sector investments into Angola’s clean energy and agricultural sectors, no one knows if, or when, President Biden will make good on his promise.
This massive investment includes a vital railway line, known as the Lobito Corridor, that transports essential minerals such as cobalt and copper from the heart of Africa to the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola. This project supposedly supports Biden’s ostensible aspirations of diversifying supply chains, but the planned African safari cancellation raises more questions than it answers about the commitment he made during his campaign.