The first US-Africa summit took place in August. It afforded the US an opportunity to show it was not completely distracted by events in Gaza and Ukraine. It also gave US businesses, encouraged by US President Barack Obama, a chance to strike deals with giants like Coca-Cola, General Electric, and IBM and investors like Blackstone pouring $14 billion into Africa. Not surprisingly, Western media seized upon the summit to raise the issue about the US-China competition in Africa (even Chinese media jumped on this bandwagon) and whether or not the summit showed the US was catching up.
