Trying to initialize project with awsmobile init

Question

When trying to initialise a project within the root using awsmobile init returns the following error:

backend awsmobile project creation error
{ Error: connect ETIMEDOUT 34.198.71.48:443
    at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete] (net.js:1106:14)
  message: 'connect ETIMEDOUT 34.198.71.48:443',
  errno: 'ETIMEDOUT',
  code: 'NetworkingError',
  syscall: 'connect',
  address: 'xx.xxx.xx.xx',
  port: 443,
  region: 'us-east-1',
  hostname: 'mobile.us-east-1.amazonaws.com',
  retryable: true,
  time: 2019-11-29T17:58:24.788Z }

I have configured the access key and secret key correctly. I have also installed aws-amplify and aws-amplify-react. The reason why I want to use awsmobile is because I want the features cloud-api and database.