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In this episode, we look at Angola’s fuel shortages, the new “fake news” law and worsening food insecurity in the south, before turning to the country’s evolving foreign policy and how Luanda is balancing closer ties with the US and Europe against its longstanding relationships with China and Russia.
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IN FOCUS
Angola’s Foreign Policy: Balancing Old Partners and New Opportunities
Luanda is drawing closer to the US and Europe while keeping China central and Russia at the table
Angola’s growing relationship with the United States has taken another step beyond trade and infrastructure. A new 2026–2031 defence cooperation roadmap, agreed during the second US–Angola Joint Defence Cooperation Committee in Luanda on 5–6 August, envisages closer ties in military training, maritime security, cyber-defence and other areas. (ANGOP; US Embassy in Angola).
The agreement also fits the Trump administration’s new approach to Africa. Washington says it is shifting its emphasis from aid towards trade and “commercial diplomacy”, using embassies, development finance and infrastructure policy to support US companies, secure supply chains and improve access to critical minerals. The State Department cites the Lobito Corridor as a leading example of that policy. (US State Department)
It is tempting to see these developments as an Angolan pivot to the West. The discussion in this week’s Angola Briefing suggested a broader strategy. João Lourenço is widening Angola’s room for manoeuvre, diversifying sources of finance and security cooperation while avoiding an exclusive alignment with any single bloc.
That approach is visible across Angola’s main relationships. Europe is putting increasingly large sums behind the Lobito Corridor and related projects, with Team Europe saying it is mobilising more than €2 billion for transport, energy, agriculture, skills and local value chains (European Commission). Washington also regards the route from the Congolese and Zambian copper belts to the Atlantic as commercially and strategically important. Defence cooperation suggests that the relationship is acquiring greater political depth, rather than remaining centred on one railway project.
While Angola’s relationship with Russia is historically rooted in Cold War support, its current relationship is far more limited and transactional. Russia’s economic footprint has shrunk significantly following Western sanctions and the exit of Russian diamond giant Alrosa from Angola’s Catoca mine, which removed one of its last major commercial positions in the country. Today, cooperation is largely concentrated on maintaining legacy Soviet-era military equipment and limited defence training links, alongside continued diplomatic engagement after Moscow appointed a new ambassador to Luanda in 2026. In return, Angola maintains a pragmatic diplomatic relationship with Russia in multilateral forums, but the partnership is no longer a major driver of trade, investment or security policy compared with China, the EU or the United States.
China places an even clearer limit on any simple realignment. Its ambassador says bilateral trade reached $10.8 billion in the first half of 2026, after totalling $20.8 billion in 2025. Angola’s own trade statistics give a clearer measure of the imbalance: China received 47% of Angolan goods exports in 2025 and supplied 20.4% of its imports. The United States accounted for only 1.3% of exports and 5.5% of imports. (Angola National Statistics Institute, 2025 trade yearbook)
The comparison with Angola’s Western partners is instructive. EU goods trade with Angola totalled €7.9 billion in 2025, down from about €9.5 billion in 2024 (European Commission trade factsheet). US goods trade was approximately $2 billion. American exports to Angola rose by 72.6% during the year, but US imports from Angola fell by 53.4%, largely reflecting the reduced weight of Angolan oil in the relationship (US Trade Representative). China remains by far Angola’s largest single-country commercial partner. Western strategic engagement is growing faster than its trade footprint.
The financial relationship with Beijing is also evolving rather than ending. Chinese lenders committed more than $49 billion to Angola between 2000 and 2024, although that figure represents loan commitments rather than the amount still outstanding (Chinese Loans to Angola report). Angola’s public-debt office says China’s share of the debt stock fell from 34% in 2020 to 19% in 2025, while oil-collateralised debt to Chinese creditors declined to about $7.3 billion. Luanda has reduced one form of dependence, but Chinese trade, finance and technology remain deeply embedded in the economy.
That history has brought roads, railways, housing and other infrastructure, while also exposing weaknesses in Angola’s development model. Florindo Chivucute described the result as “development without inclusion”: large capital flows and ambitious projects alongside persistent poverty and limited benefits for much of the population. Earlier Chinese lending and contracting often operated with little public scrutiny inside an already centralised political economy. Diversifying sources of finance will achieve little if weak oversight, privileged access and poor accountability survive under a different group of foreign partners.
Russia, meanwhile, has lost ground without disappearing. A Luanda court convicted two Russian nationals of offences including espionage and terrorism in July, sentencing them to 11 and eight years in prison; both men deny wrongdoing and have appealed. Russian state-controlled diamond producer Alrosa has also left its 41% holding in Catoca after Western sanctions complicated banking and diamond sales. Yet Moscow appointed a new ambassador to Angola on 28 July, signalling that it intends to preserve its diplomatic presence.
Angola now has more foreign-policy options than it did a decade ago. Competition over minerals, infrastructure, markets and security gives Luanda greater bargaining power, but leverage only has value if it produces better investment terms, stronger local supply chains and more transparent financing. Otherwise Angola may become more strategically important to its partners without becoming significantly more prosperous for its own population.
Also in the news:
Fuel shortage persists despite new refining capacity
Sources: Novo Jornal, Valor Económico, ANGOP, MIREMPET/IRDP, Sonangol
Petroleum minister Diamantino Azevedo has acknowledged a national fuel shortage, citing increased consumption, international prices, logistical constraints and financial difficulties at Sonangol. The problem remained acute this week in Benguela, Cabinda, Huíla and Cunene, although supply in Luanda was reported to be more stable. In Ondjiva, motorists have waited as long as three days to fill up, while petrol has sold on the informal market for Kz2,000 a litre and as much as Kz3,000 near the Santa Clara border, compared with an official pump price of Kz300.
The underlying dependence remains large. Official IRDP figures show that imports supplied 73% of Angola’s fuel consumption in 2025, at a cost of about USD2.6 billion; imports accounted for 84% of fuel acquired in the final quarter. The Luanda refinery’s newer petrol unit has capacity of 1.58 million litres a day, while the first phase of the Cabinda refinery can process 30,000 barrels a day. Sonangol announced a stabilisation plan involving road and maritime deliveries in May, and Azevedo says the present shortage is being addressed, but no timetable or new emergency measure has been announced and shortages were still being reported on 11 August.
The latest crisis is harder to dismiss as a temporary logistics problem because it comes after substantial investment intended to reduce Angola’s dependence on imported fuel. Inês Silva traced that dependence to decades in which Angola exported crude and used the proceeds to import refined products rather than building sufficient refining capacity. Florindo Chivucute focused on the payment chain between the state, Sonangol and suppliers. The IMF describes the same structural tension: Sonangol imports fuel in foreign currency, sells it domestically below market prices and is supposed to recover the subsidy from the state. New refineries should gradually reduce the import bill, but they do not solve that financing problem. Until Angola can reliably fund the gap between import costs and controlled pump prices — or reform subsidies without another severe cost-of-living shock — fuel shortages are likely to remain a recurring risk rather than an exceptional event.
New disinformation law raises stakes for online speech ahead of 2027
Sources: Novo Jornal, AngoLEX – Law 6/26, CPJ, Human Rights Watch
Angola’s Law Against False Information on the Internet entered into force on 4 August. It applies to content produced abroad when aimed at an Angolan audience and requires platforms to publish information on content removals and inauthentic accounts, submit monthly reports to the regulator and take action against material deemed false. The law also establishes administrative fines and allows criminal liability for intentionally producing or disseminating false information.
There is an important discrepancy in the reporting on penalties. Novo Jornal says the law establishes prison terms reaching ten years for cases involving elections or national security. The published text reproduced by AngoLEX does not contain those sentencing bands: Article 29 instead refers offences to the existing Penal Code and provides for applicable minimum and maximum sentences to be increased by up to half. That point should therefore be treated cautiously unless the official Diário da República text establishes otherwise.
The legislation had already prompted substantial international concern while it was being drafted. The Committee to Protect Journalists and 37 other press-freedom and human-rights organisations urged the government to amend the bill, warning that vague definitions, criminal sanctions and its extraterritorial scope could encourage censorship and affect journalists based outside Angola. Human Rights Watch subsequently cited the disinformation proposal as part of a broader expansion of state controls over civic and public life.
The practical significance will become clearer as Angola approaches the 2027 election. Florindo Chivucute sees the law as part of a wider body of legislation that civil-society groups fear can be used against dissent, while Inês Silva emphasised the importance of Facebook and other platforms as spaces where Angolans discuss unemployment, living costs and government policy outside the more constrained traditional media environment. The risk extends beyond prosecutions. Broad liability and removal requirements can encourage platforms, editors and individual users to err on the side of silence, particularly when the boundary between a false factual claim and legitimate criticism is uncertain. In an election year, that could narrow one of the few arenas in which political debate has remained relatively difficult for the authorities to control.
Food insecurity in southern Angola set to worsen during lean season
Source: ReliefWeb – Angola Key Message Update
Parts of southern Angola are expected to deteriorate from Stressed food-security conditions to Crisis during the October 2026–January 2027 lean season. The assessment identifies poor harvests, drought, water and pasture shortages, transport costs and falling livestock values among the pressures on households in Cunene, Namibe, Huíla and Cuando Cubango. Cattle prices were reported at around Kz150,000 in May, down from roughly Kz400,000 in 2023.
The latest warning describes a recurring structural problem rather than an isolated bad season. Chivucute argued that successive governments have relied on temporary interventions without reducing the vulnerability of communities repeatedly hit by drought and food shortages. Silva raised a related governance problem: the gap between official presentation of large water and anti-drought projects and the conditions reported by communities and religious organisations on the ground. Investment in dams and water infrastructure may improve resilience, but repeated food crises suggest that measuring success by projects completed is insufficient without evidence that household livelihoods are becoming more secure.
