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What the Trump presidency will not do in Africa

January 16, 2025 at 8:00 am

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media during a press conference at the Mar-a-Lago Club on January 07, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida [Scott Olson/Getty Images]

President-elect Donald Trump is not known as an African enthusiast. He never visited the continent during his first term (2017-2021). Not many African leaders are known to be close to him in any capacity. There is no record of him setting foot on the continent even as private citizen but his company, The Trump Organisation, in the 1990s, explored potentials for luxury hotels in Nigeria, while showing interest in infrastructure projects in South Africa, but that is about all.

In fact, the incoming President went on record of expressing his negative view of Africa, not just one or two countries. During a meeting discussing immigration in January 2018, President Trump asked a group of congressional leaders in a White House meeting, why America needs more people from “all these shithole countries.” Media reports said he was referring to Haiti and El-Salvador, too, and this appears to be true because Haiti’s foreign minister at the time summoned the US Chargé d’Affaires, Robin Diallo, to clarify the comments, while the United Nations said the slur was “racist, shocking and shameful”. In a tweet on 12 January, 2018, then President Trump did not deny the comment, but denied that he used such language.

Many African countries found the comment offensive, prompting South Africa, Ghana, Botswana and Nigeria, among others, to formally protest to the US. The African Union issued a statement demanding the retraction of the slur by Mr. Trump.

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With this fresh in mind, many African leaders, some of whom were in power then and now, have to contemplate what to expect from the second Trump Administration, while trying to predict his next steps. It will be interesting to watch if President Trump attends the next G20 summit planned for November in South Africa.

So far, the incoming administration has not articulated African policy and the African affairs in the State Department are currently managed by Molly Phee, a Biden appointee, with years of experience in African affairs. She is likely to stay on when the Trump foreign policy teams take over, since no nomination for the position of Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs has been made, so far.

Economics-wise, currently the US’s foreign direct investment in Africa amounts to $56.6 billion but, notably, the figure dropped during Trump’s first term. When he left office, the total US invested money in Africa stood at around $46.9 billion. It is more likely than not that figure is to rise, however marginally.

Outgoing President Joe Biden visited Angola in early December, where he promised $600 million to fund a railway line extending from Angola all the way to The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The line, known as The Lobito Atlantic Railway, is intended to connect East and West Africa on the Atlantic shores to tap into minerals, including rare earth, of which DRC has plenty.

The US is concerned about China’s almost monopolistic hold on the mining industry in DRC. Beijing, over the last three decades, has made huge strides in its Africa policy with Chinese direct investment in Africa until last year standing at about $42 billion.

During the China-Africa summit last September in Beijing, China’s President, Xi Jinping, promised to up that figure to $50.7 billion within the next three years. Mr. Xi also said China will create at least one million jobs across Africa. Apart from the bilateral agreements with individual African counties, China has also been pursuing state by state economic aid and cooperation. In South Africa alone, the most recent data says Beijing has pumped some $25 billion into communications, finance, energy and manufacturing.

Security-wise, any articulate Trump African policy, whenever it is put together, is likely to try to counter Russia which has made rapid advances, military and security wise, in many African countries, focusing on the Sahel region, while the US is on retreat.

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Last May witnessed a rare event when Russian troops entered the US base while the American 1000 strong contingent had still not fully evacuated after Niger ordered the US to leave Airbase 101 located next to Diori Hamani International Airport in the capital, Niamey, on 19 May 19, yet the Russians had arrived two weeks earlier!  The US and its allies have been expelled from half a dozen African countries, ending military cooperation. France has already left all Sahel countries, including Chad, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso while it is in the process of evacuating troops from Senegal. It is a big win for Moscow as it is committing huge security resources in its renewed African come back, coupled with economic cooperation and aid incentives. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, Moscow donated lots of its vaccine doses to African countries, followed by hundreds of more than 200,000 tons of grains to poor African nations including Eritrea, Somalia and Mali. Moscow also wrote off the debt of many African countries, estimated to be around $23 billion. President Putin made the announcement of debt cancelation during the second Russia-African summit in St. Petersburg in July, 2023. 

All such developments are likely to limit the US’ Africa focused counter-terrorism strategy, of which the troops in Niger played an essential part but no more now that they are gone. 

In general terms, any Trump Administration Africa policy is likely to follow the traditional US geopolitics across Africa, with challenging China economically and facing Russia security-wise. While the US still has a lot to be done to catch up with China on the economic front, Russia appears to be winning the day when it comes to security.

Libya, another North African country, is already serving as the Russian stepping stone towards Africa wide Russian presence. Moscow, in light of the collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad, is surely considering moving at least some of it military assets and personnel to Eastern Libya where its ally, General Khalifa Haftar, has benefitted from Russian help on previous occasions.

However, President Trump with his stated campaign promises to avoid foreign wars is unlikely to focus on the Russian challenges in Africa, but rather the Chinese ones. He has already promised to hit China with trade tariffs, of up to 10 per cent on top of any additional charges. He might consider an increase of such levy on Chinese exports to US would help slow Beijing’s rather fast economic growth across Africa. He is also not expected to make human rights and civil society pivotal parts of any Africa policy his administration might come up with. He likes to be seen as the best deal maker and such issues tend to touch on sensitive matters of governance, disliked by most African nations as foreign meddling.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.