MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The US has established a strategic food security partnership with Africa to edge Russia out of the continent’s food market, in a tactic that’s not unlike US moves in Europe’s energy market, Andrey Kortunov, director general at the Russian International Affairs Council think tank, told TASS on Friday.
The analyst said a confrontation with Russia is one of the main motives for the initiatives, even if they are humanitarian, that are put forward by US President Joe Biden’s administration.
"Since the United States, along with Russia, is one of the world's largest food exporters, it certainly makes sense that the position of the Biden administration is to promote American food exports to African markets and, if possible, replace Russian grain with these exports. That means the tactics [of Washington] will be about the same as what we see in the European energy markets," he said.
But Kortunov said "the possibilities of the United States are not limitless".
The analyst also highlighted that humanitarian aid has always been not a very popular area of US foreign policy, which caused a lot of criticism, including from the Republican Party.
"Therefore, I don’t think that the volume of humanitarian, technical assistance [from Washington] to African countries, including food, will be sharply increased," he said.
Kortunov said the summit hasn’t led to any fundamental changes, but is rather a tribute to a "fashionable format".
"The US held a summit not too long ago with its neighbors in Latin America. Now it is, one can say, a standard form in foreign policy, which is used in all geographical areas," the analyst explained.