President Biden met his Angolan counterpart President João Lourenço in the capital Luanda on Tuesday, becoming the first U.S. president to visit the former Portuguese colony. Biden used the trip to promote the Lobito Corridor, a U.S.-funded multibillion-dollar rail and port infrastructure project connecting Angola to Central Africa, as multinational corporations seek to access the region’s vast mineral resources. Biden delivered a speech after touring Angola’s National Museum of Slavery, built on the site of a 17th century Portuguese chapel where enslaved people were forcibly baptized before being forced into the Middle Passage.

President Joe Biden: “We remember the stolen men and women and children who were brought to our shores in chains, subjected to unimaginable cruelty. … The United States is founded on an idea, one embedded in our Declaration of Independence. That is that all men and women are created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout their lives. It’s abundantly clear today we have not lived up to that idea.”