During the first week of December, the U.S. President hosted the heads of state of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign a peace agreement. He promised an end to years of warfare in the volatile eastern DRC, presenting it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations to generate significant profit.
Not long after, however, a starkly different method for violence emerged. The administration announced that U.S. forces had executed Christmas Day airstrikes in north-west Nigeria, striking sites associated with the Islamic State (IS). In a social media post, the President stated, “I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”
These divergent actions highlights the defining feature of the U.S. engagement with sub-Saharan Africa in this term: a moving away from promoting democracy and human rights in favor of a avowed focus on trade and stopping hostilities—despite the fact that this squares with the emerging military strikes 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 mantra commonly used for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” declared a senior U.S. state department official on a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.
An administration spokesperson reinforced this, saying the President “approaches Africa not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse partner. Under his leadership, American investment, technology, and diplomacy are helping African nations achieve stability, build real energy independence, and turn their natural wealth into jobs and opportunity.”
This pivot is significant, but analysts note it is early to gauge its impact. The approach is intertwined with the President’s personal style, which has included conflicts with long-standing U.S. partners and derogatory comments about Africans.
“The core tenet 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:
In contrast to his recent predecessors, the President never visited sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His most notable foray into African affairs was dubbing nations on the continent with a crude epithet, which he later acknowledged using.
“Africa sits at dead bottom in his list of priorities, not just for him, but for the administration in general,” said 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 dispute 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 resonates strongly now in 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.
A comparable standoff 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 ran up against Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation composed between Christians and Muslims and suffering from security crises affecting both groups.
Some Nigerian analysts suggested that the forceful rhetoric may have prompted the government into more responsiveness 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 mediated in the Congo conflict and sent an envoy to try to end the fighting in Sudan’s civil war, to date 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,” noted one conflict expert.
Observers characterize 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.
“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 diplomacy that we are talking about does not seek to spreading the milk of human kindness, as it were, it is about a quid-pro-quo posture towards Africa,” she added.
