🔗 Share this article

During the first week of December, President Trump hosted the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a truce. The commitment involved an end to long-standing fighting in the unstable eastern DRC, presenting it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations “to make a lot of money”.

Weeks later, however, a sharply contrasting method for violence emerged. The administration announced that U.S. forces had conducted Christmas Day airstrikes in a region of Nigeria, striking sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). Via a statement posted online, the President stated, I had cautioned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”

An Evident Strategic Pivot

This dichotomy encapsulates the core tenet of the U.S. engagement with sub-Saharan Africa in this administration: a moving away from championing democracy and human rights in favor of a declared focus on trade and stopping hostilities—despite the fact that this squares with the new air campaign in Nigeria is yet unclear.

“We no longer see Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a slogan commonly used for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” said a senior U.S. state department official in a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

An administration spokesperson stated this, saying the President “approaches 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.”

Consequences and Mixed Signals

This shift is consequential, but observers warn it is early to judge its results. The approach is complicated by the President’s personal style, which has included conflicts with long-standing U.S. partners and derogatory comments about 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 an analyst for Africa studies at a prominent foreign policy council.

Notable policy moves have included:

• Dismantlement of the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. An analysis predicts this could lead to millions of additional deaths globally by 2030, with a sizable share in Africa.
• Imposing visa restrictions on citizens from numerous African countries and suspending most refugee admissions.
• Starting a global tariff campaign that has adversely affected African businesses dependent on U.S. markets, such as textile manufacturers in Lesotho.
• Letting a longstanding U.S.-Africa trade preference act, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), to lapse without renewal.

International Disinterest and Tensions

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

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

A notable feud has developed 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 narrative of a ‘white genocide’ happening in South Africa aligns beautifully now in U.S. political culture and the idea that diversity is not welcome, it’s a threat,” commented a veteran South African journalist based in Washington.

Transactional Relations and Targeted Action

An analogous standoff flared 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 ran up against Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation evenly divided between Christians and Muslims and suffering from security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts noted that the harsh rhetoric may have spurred the government into greater action on security. After the Christmas airstrikes, Nigerian officials said they had consented to the U.S. intervention and might collaborate on further actions.

Trump has publicly expressed his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. His administration has mediated in the Congo conflict and dispatched a diplomat to try to forge a peace deal in Sudan’s civil war, so far without success. While the Congo deal seems 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.

A Resemblance to Competitors

Some analysts see the new U.S. approach as similar to that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have expanded their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on commercial interests.

“This is a delayed recognition of African agency, and to that extent, it represents, at least at the level of symbols, taking Africa very seriously,” said one foreign policy analyst.

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

“The diplomacy that we are talking about isn't about spreading the milk of human kindness, as it were, it is about a transactional posture towards Africa,” she added.