Biden jokes about plans to visit Africa, telling Biya and Co. he could eat their food ⁰

U.S. President Joe Biden joked during a meeting with African leaders, saying he plans to visit their continent but may greedily eat their food, NYP reported.

The 80-year-old president said he is a poor relation who abuses his hospitality, but elicited heavy sighs from those in attendance over food insecurity in Africa.

“I’m grateful that all of you have made the journey to Washington for this summit, and I’m eager to visit your continent,” Biden told the representatives of 50 African nations at DC’s convention center after hosting them for a White House dinner Wednesday night.

“As I told some of you — you invited me to your countries. I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for because I may show up.’ The poor relatives always show up. The wealthy ones never show up. The poor come and they eat your food and stay longer than they should.”

Biden added, “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in your home countries.”

The president, who used to call himself middle-class Joe, often jokes about being a poor relation, despite the fact that he and First Lady Jill Biden earned a surprise $15.6 million in income in 2017 and 2018 after he left the vice presidency.

Biden previously had much more modest net worth, though members of his family earned huge salaries because of their association with him, including his son Hunter, who earned up to $1 million a year serving on the board of directors of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, while his father headed the Obama administration’s policy on Ukraine.

Hours after his humorous remark, Biden addressed the summit again, this time detailing U.S. efforts to help poor countries in Africa with rising food prices.

“We’re facing a global food crisis, and nowhere is it felt more keenly than on the African continent. Last year, nearly 120 million people in Africa faced acute food insecurity and only halfway through 2022 as drought struck and the food costs soared… the number increased to 140 million people,” Biden said.

Biden added that Africa has “enormous potential” to use its “significant unused arable land” to feed its people and also help feed the world. He said the U.S. Department of Agriculture would assist in this effort.

The U.S. president has summoned African leaders, many of whom are fabulously wealthy thanks to stealing from their own people, as the U.S. government seeks to counter Chinese influence in the region.

Mini-corteges escorted by police cars with flashing sirens escorted African leaders to and from their luxury hotels near the White House this week, causing a traffic jam in D.C.

Only Eritrea and the leaders of the four countries ousted by the African Union for recent coups — Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan — were not represented.

Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has held office for 43 years, was present even as U.S. authorities work to confiscate $70 million in assets allegedly stolen by his son as two-thirds of his country’s citizens live in poverty.

President Paul Biya of Cameroon, who has been in power for 40 years, also attended the Washington summit, as did President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, who has been in power a total of 38 years, and President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, who is known to have bought a $129 million house in Paris in 2010, a year after he succeeded his father, who ruled for 42 years.

Source: News Armenia