Like Biden, don't expect Trump to pay much attention to Africa

As commentators assess the implications of Donald Trump’s election victory for the United States and the world, various publications have asked what Trump’s return will mean for their continent. In one well-informed analysis, the BBC’s Wedaeli Chibelushi highlights “trade, aid, and security” as key sectors. We can also ask what might change in terms of Washington’s political relationships with various African countries, and how such changes would affect the overall balance of U.S. primacy versus restraint.

An initial caveat is necessary – of all the world’s regions, Trump and his team will likely not be thinking much about Africa. When Professor Stephen Walt recently assessed “The 10 Foreign-Policy Implications of the 2024 U.S. Election,” for example, he did not mention Africa – and that’s because the Middle East, Ukraine, NATO, and China, among other issues, will likely consume much more of Trump’s attention than the African continent will.

If Trump ignores Africa, that would be in keeping with a bipartisan neglect of the continent from the time of Barack Obama through the present. Obama and Joe Biden each held a “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit” (in 2014 and 2022, respectively), but across the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, Africa was approached mostly as a theater for counterterrorism, trade, and global influence, rather than as having intrinsic importance to Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris would likely have replicated the largely performative, status quo-friendly approach of Biden. Although Harris had a deep bench of Africa hands on her campaign, that depth more reflects the long line of aspirants who line up for foreign policy jobs in Democratic administrations, more than a now-dashed promise of transformation. Biden and Harris will leave office with little to show for their Africa policy beyond the summit and a slate of high-profile but low-substance trips, including Biden’s upcoming visit to Angola.

As Trump takes office, there will be something of an opportunity for diplomatic outreach and “reset” with Africa. So far, Trump's picks for top foreign policy postings do not include anyone with a pronounced interest in African affairs and his victory has elicited more mixed reactions in Africa than one might expect. Despite his infamous “shithole countries” comment and his numerous racist and Islamophobic remarks, many ordinary Africans admire Trump’s entrepreneurial career, socially conservative platform, and outspokenness. Various African leaders were quick to congratulate the comeback candidate. Trump is, however, likely unaware of and relatively indifferent to whatever opportunity exists for engagement, and so it will probably slip by.

If “personnel is policy,” Trump’s first term did not bring any shocking or unusual appointments for civilian posts related to Africa, and his second term may not either; the true ideologues and hawks are likely to gravitate towards Iran policy, for example. During his first term, Trump appointed veteran diplomat Tibor Nagy as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, think tanker J. Peter Pham as Special Envoy for the Sahel, and another veteran diplomat, Donald Booth, as Special Envoy for Sudan. The situation in the Sahel and Sudan was worse when Trump’s term ended than when it began: a massacre in Sudan in June 2019 brought no consequences for its perpetrators, and Mali witnessed a coup in 2020. Yet those outcomes cannot be laid solely at the feet of the Trump administration. Tellingly, the situation in the Sahel and Sudan in 2024 is also worse than it was when Biden took office, so neither administration earns high marks here.

Trump’s indifference to Africa could lead to continued inertia in Africa policymaking – meaning, concretely, that the military’s U.S. Africa Command or AFRICOM would continue to be the main face of U.S. policy on the continent. Although Trump is more dictator-friendly than Biden was, it’s notable that under Biden, AFRICOM Commander General Michael Langley has met, seemingly enthusiastically, with autocrats and would-be autocrats in Africa, including, for example, Libya’s Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Trump may show a friendly face to Russia, which could result in a more permissive environment for Russia – although it is not as though the Biden administration’s tough, anti-Russian rhetoric has yielded much actual success in rolling back Russian influence, particularly across the Sahel.

Politically, the biggest shifts could come in the Horn of Africa. It is possible that Trump’s team could recognize Somaliland, a breakaway territory that has been claiming independence from Somalia since 1991. With Somalia itself, the pendulum may swing back towards disengagement; Biden reversed a late Trump-era order to withdraw some troops. It is also possible that in Sudan, “the Trump administration will look to pick a winner” between the two factions – the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces – that are fighting for control.

At the same time, the White House’s absorption in other issues will likely mean that politics in the Horn (and in other regions of the continent) will only be considered “through the prism of Trump’s domestic fiscal policy and then on the political side, the Gulf and Israel.” On Somaliland, Trump may wish to avoid antagonizing Egypt, which has aligned with Somalia against Ethiopia, and whose President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi may be glad to see Trump’s return; on Sudan, Trump may defer to the United Arab Emirates, widely accused of backing the Rapid Support Forces, but may also simply let matters play out in Sudan while he focuses elsewhere.

In sum, Trump’s win brings mostly troubling implications for Africa and especially for ordinary Africans, whether because (as Chibelushi notes) key programs relating to aid and public health (above all the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the President’s Malaria Initiative, both launched by President George W. Bush) may be cut, and/or because Trump may empower dictators even more than Biden did, and/or because inertia will leave AFRICOM to make the day-to-day decisions. Trump’s transactional approach may appeal to some African leaders, and Trump is interested in issues such as critical mineral access (although his previous administration’s “Critical Minerals Strategy” did not mention Africa). Overall, by the end of the decade, U.S. influence in Africa will likely have ebbed to an even lower point that where it stands today.