Donald Trump.
Donald J Trump will be sworn in as the 47th US President on Monday, January 20. By Tuesday analysis will shift from expectations to the realities of the second four-year Trump administration. Observers of US and global politics will drill into his inauguration speech to glean perspectives for the interesting times ahead.
Domestic imperatives undergird Trump’s rebound. The link between the domestic and external fronts is summed up in the “America First”, and “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) mantras. For sceptics who nonetheless rued the return of Trump, his election was something akin to hope against hope.
Trump’s election sent shockwaves globally for varying reasons. Many had hoped and expected that Vice President Kamala Harris would prevail, ushering in a second Democratic Party administration. Most African leaders, not least Kenya’s William Ruto, would have preferred a Kamala Harris to a Donald Trump. This is because the Joe Biden administration had appreciably invested in resetting relations with Africa at policy and pragmatic levels.
Biden launched an African foreign policy – the first in a decade, ratcheted up high-level visits, pushed for Africa’s joining of the G20, lobbied for continental representation in the United Nations Security Council, and initiated a couple of infrastructure projects.
The $16 Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor connecting Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia is by far Biden’s legacy project in Africa. Given its link to critical minerals crucial to the US tech, motor, and aviation industries, it will likely survive under Trump.
US-Africa relations
Much of the mending of US-Africa relations was thanks to officials in the State Department and Whitehouse. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken led the way, supported by former National Security Council advisor to Biden, Judd Devermont. In his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, new Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck chords with the America First foreign policy thus: “does it make America safer, does it make America stronger, does it make America more prosperous”? The upshot? The US will be looking to maximize self-interested benefits. Programmes Washington considers freeloading freebies are over!
Rubio’s mention of the role Kenya is -playing in pacifying gang violence in Haiti, a country in the immediate US neighbourhood, provides entry points for Kenya’s negotiations with the imminent transactional US administration from 2025 to 2028.
The nominee for crucial NSC advisor to Trump, Joe Foltz, a staffer on the Republican House Foreign Affairs on Africa, has indicated via a social media re-post that he would toe the Trump line. Indications are that Peter Pham, a former Trump envoy to the Great Lakes and the Sahel, would be tapped as assistant secretary of state for Africa. Rudolph Atallah, a director of African counterterrorism operations during the George H W Bush administration is said to be returning to the National Security Council. Equally influential will be the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Republican John James who has in the past sought retaliation for South Africa’s close ties with China, Russia, Iran, and Palestine. These are the harbingers of Africa dropping further down the US national interest.
In Africa, Kenya was a major beneficiary of the Biden administration evidenced by President Ruto’s state visit in May during which a comprehensive package of deals was reached. With the impending Trump II era, Nairobi will have to come to terms with the fact many of the nascent agreements will fizzle out. Kenya’s status as a major non-NATO ally (MNNA) is unlikely to take off given Trump’s position that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) itself freeloads on the US military budget and assets. A more compelling proposition from Kenya would be the revival of the Free Trade Area negotiations initiated by the Uhuru Kenyatta administration during the Trump I period. Kenya and Africa more broadly will have to look at digital economy opportunities, what with the rise of tech billionaires exemplified by founder of space exploration multinational SpaceX, Elon Musk.
Many African countries have been sanctioned or are facing prohibitions and restrictions. According to the US Office of Assets Control (OFAC), they include the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Countries ineligible to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) largely due to human rights, democracy, and governance infractions include Uganda, Niger, Gabon, the Central African Republic and Zimbabwe.
If these countries hoped that they would be in the good graces of the US with Trump’s return, they would be disappointed. In keeping with a low-level priority for Africa, Trump will likely leave the sanctions as they are. In any case, the renewal of Agoa, expiring in September, remains uncertain. Trump, the dealmaker is likely to use the Agoa as a bargaining chip in the broader America First scheme of things, Africa included. Strategists fashioning connections between Agoa and the African Continental Free Trade Area would do well to return to the drawing board.
Global powers started preparing for Trump’s comeback as early as 2023. Caught off-guard at the election of Trump in 2016, China had prepared for Trump II well ahead of the polls. Indications are that Beijing is all set for hardball relations with the US drawing experience from the trade war with the US that ratcheted between 2018 and 2020.
The NATO and Western Europe more broadly hedged their bets as the 2024 elections loomed. Even as a candidate, Trump hosted leaders and foreign officials from Israel, Ukraine, the UK, Poland, Palestine Authority, and Hungary. Sustaining this trend is the invitation of far-right leaders mostly from Europe and Latin America to attend tomorrow’s inauguration.
There is no record of African leaders or officials strategically contacting Trump. It would appear that African leaders did not prepare well enough for a Trump II presidency. Using their diplomatic missions in Washington and other backroom or Track II diplomacy could help correct this gap.
Trump’s real and perceived proximity to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whom he stayed connected with throughout his four-year hiatus implies a thawing of US-Russia relations. Trump’s promise to end the Russia-Ukraine war has been interpreted as the surrender of the latter to the former. Several African countries have taken positions similar to Trump’s as evident in the participation of several African countries during the BRICS summit in Russia last year. If Trump leans on Ukraine to sue for peace, leaders such as South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Ethiopia’s Abiy, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi - members of the BRICS formation – are likely to be supportive. New partner-state entrants into the BRICS – Algeria, Nigeria, and Uganda – would tilt the scale in favour of Russia.
Ideally, favourable African entreaties toward Russia and China specifically, and the BRICS and the Global South more broadly, should not bother Trump too much. The problem would arise if the BRICS went ahead with their dollarisation plans – reducing reliance on the US dollar as the currency of international transactions.
Trump has threatened a 100 per cent tariff on the BRICS nations should such plans proceed. This would take the global economy into a massive tailspin. Over the last four years, the US has upped rhetoric and action against so-called malign actors in Africa, a label tagged on Russia and China. Russia has particularly backed authoritarians and military juntas on the continent.
It is unlikely that Trump will pressure the Kremlin over its involvement in African theatres of conflict in places like Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the coup belt of the Sahel where military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea rely on the Russia’s so-called Africa corps.
It is also improbable that the US under Trump will pursue China’s role in Africa based on human rights, democracy, and governance issues as was the case with the Biden administration. Instead, the friction point will be trade tariffs and sanctions on China with ramifications for Africa. A November Reuters poll of economists familiar with US-China trade indicated that Trump could impose a tariff of about 40 percent on Chinese exports to the US. The implications for Africa would be twofold.
Enforce sanctions
First, along with the tariffs, Trump might attempt to strictly enforce sanctions on Chinese companies particularly those in the digital technology sector. African countries would be required to adhere to these prohibitions, and not to trade with Chinese companies. An African heavily reliant on Chinese technologies would have to make choices between Beijing and Washington. Secondly, the tariffs could drive Beijing to seek alternative markets including African ones.
The unintended consequence would be an even tighter Sino-Africa economic partnership to the detriment of the US. African nations seeking climate change funding from the US should look to internal sources or elsewhere. The fact that Trump pulled the US from the UN Human Rights Council suggests that Trump will likely not bother much about democracy and human rights.
Largely, Trump rode on an anti-immigrant sentiment to romp back. While the focus has been on immigrants through the US southern border Africans can expect that the overall tough immigrant policy will affect its nationals.
For Africa, an option is to negotiate with Washington bilaterally while at the same tapping the opportunities presented by other powers in a decidedly multipolar world.
Dr Wekesa is director, African Centre for the Study of the US, and visiting professor at the universities of Southern California and Howard: bob.wekesa@wits.ac.za.
