🔗 Share this article

In early December, the U.S. President convened the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign a peace agreement. The commitment involved an end to long-standing fighting in the turbulent eastern DRC, presenting it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations to generate significant profit.

Not long after, however, a sharply contrasting strategy for instability emerged. It was declared that U.S. forces had executed Christmas Day airstrikes in north-west Nigeria, hitting sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). In a social media post, the President declared, My prior warnings indicated these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”

A Defining Change of Direction

This dichotomy encapsulates the central principle of the U.S. policy towards sub-Saharan Africa in this period: a stepping back from promoting democracy and human rights in favor of a avowed focus on economic deals and ending wars—even as this fits with the new aerial operations in Nigeria is yet unclear.

“We have moved past viewing Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a phrase often repeated for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” said a high-ranking U.S. diplomat on a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

An administration representative reinforced this, noting the President “views Africa not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse partner. Under his leadership, American capital, technology, and diplomacy are helping African nations secure peace, build real energy independence, and turn their natural wealth into jobs and opportunity.”

Strategic Results and Mixed Signals

This pivot is significant, but experts note it is premature to gauge its impact. The approach is complicated by the President’s unconventional diplomacy, which has included disputes with long-standing U.S. partners and insults directed at Africans.

“The guiding idea is, if it’s in the long-term or short-term interest of the United States, as I see it, then I’m going to do it,” commented a scholar for Africa studies at a major foreign policy council.

Major actions have included:

• Dismantlement of the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. A study predicts this could lead to millions of excess fatalities globally by 2030, with a large number in Africa.
• Implementing visa restrictions on citizens from more than two dozen African countries and stopping most refugee admissions.
• Implementing a global tariff campaign that has adversely affected African businesses dependent on U.S. markets, such as textile manufacturers in Lesotho.
• Allowing a longstanding U.S.-Africa trade preference act, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), to lapse without renewal.

International Apathy and Strains

Differing from his predecessors, the President never visited sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His most infamous comment on African affairs was dubbing nations on the continent with a crude epithet, which he later admitted using.

“Africa clearly runs dead bottom in his list of priorities, not just for the President, but for the administration in general,” remarked the Africa program director for an international conflict resolution organization. He pointed to the recent U.S. National Security Strategy, which allocated only three paragraphs to Africa in a 29-page document.

A major disagreement has broken out with South Africa, seemingly spurred by claims of persecution against the white minority. This led to a U.S. boycott of the G20 summit in Johannesburg and threats to block South African delegates from the next meeting.

“The idea of a ‘white genocide’ happening in South Africa fits perfectly now with U.S. political culture and the idea that diversity is not welcome, it’s a threat,” observed a veteran South African journalist based in Washington.

Transactional Engagement and Targeted Action

A similar tension emerged with Nigeria in November, when the President threatened to cut aid and send in the military “guns-a-blazing” over the killing of Christians. This conflicted with Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation composed between Christians and Muslims and plagued by security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts said that the stern rhetoric may have prompted the government into greater action on security. After the Christmas airstrikes, Nigerian officials said they had authorized the U.S. intervention and might collaborate on further actions.

Trump has publicly expressed his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. His administration has brokered in the Congo conflict and dispatched a diplomat to try to forge a peace deal in Sudan’s civil war, as yet without success. While the Congo deal appeared to have been broken quickly, it “at least serves to introduce a degree of diplomacy and a channel outside the battlefield,” said one conflict expert.

Similar to Other Powers

Observers characterize the new U.S. approach as reminiscent of that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have deepened their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on strategic interests.

“It’s a long overdue recognition of African agency, and to that extent, it represents, at least at the level of symbols, taking Africa very seriously,” commented one foreign policy analyst.

In practice, the new approach likely means that “a state that doesn’t have anything to put on the table … is not on his radar.”

“The engagement that we are talking about is not aimed at spreading the milk of human kindness, as it were, it is about a transactional posture towards Africa,” the observer stated.