Yellen kickstarts Biden administration visits to Africa

The Biden administration's big push to engage more with Africa is underway as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen begins a 10-day visit aimed at promoting all the economic possibilities that lie between the U.S. and the world’s second-largest continent.

Yellen is the first administration official to visit the continent since President Joe Biden announced during the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in December that he plans to make a trip to the region this year, as will Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and a number of Cabinet secretaries.

Yellen's travels will take her from a business incubator for entrepreneurs in Senegal to agricultural sites in Zambia to a wildlife park and Ford assembly plant in South Africa, each stop designed to highlight areas of U.S.-African cooperation. She'll also connect with plenty of top African officials along the way.

Yellen arrived in Dakar, Senegal, late Wednesday and was starting up her public schedule on Friday.

At the business incubator on Friday, Yellen plans to stress that Africa, with its growing middle class, “will shape the trajectory of the world economy over the next century," offering important opportunities for the U.S.

“This can be a win-win for our economies,” Yellen plans to say, according to excerpts of her prepared remarks released Thursday.

Continental Africa will make up one quarter of the world’s population by 2050 and is rich in natural resources.

China's increasing economic entrenchment in Africa is also motivating the U.S. to deepen ties.

Before arriving in Africa, Yellen met with her Chinese counterpart, Liu He, in Switzerland on Wednesday as part of an effort to ease tensions with the Asian superpower.

Her job on the more than 13,000-mile (20,000-kilometer) circuit from Washington to Zurich, Dakar,...