US President Joe Biden landed in Angola on Monday for a visit focused on a US-backed railway project and on the legacy of slavery, but his decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden threatened to overshadow the official agenda.

The visit fulfils a promise to visit Sub-Saharan Africa during his presidency and aims to bolster the Lobito Corridor project, which links resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean.