Africa far from Donald Trump’s priorities

In July 2015, Barack Obama visited Ethiopia and Kenya for his last official trip to the African continent. Kenya being his father’s country of origin, the significance of this trip was symbolic. It is even more so today. For nine years, no American president has set foot on African soil.

This absence could be prolonged if Joe Biden does not make the visit to Angola that he postponed in October. Donald Trump, re-elected for a second term at the White House on Wednesday November 6, has never shown any interest in the African continent. He never visited there during his first term, between 2017 and 2021, and during a meeting in the Oval Office in January 2018, the American president displayed his contempt for African states and ‘Haiti by treating them as “shithole country”. Its only significant diplomatic action was, in December 2020, the recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for Rabat’s opening of diplomatic relations with Israel.

“No concrete policy”

“Africa has never interested Donald Trump and, to my knowledge, the term was not even mentioned during his presidential campaign,” underlines Jeff Hawkins, former United States ambassador to the Central African Republic and researcher at the Institute for National and Strategic Research (IRIS). “American domestic politics was the major theme, adds Mamadou Diouf, historian and professor at Columbia University in New York. Africa is not really part of foreign policy which is more focused on the Middle East, Ukraine or the relationship with China. » In Washington, the promoter of MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) had only received two African heads of state in four years: Muhammadu Buhari (Nigeria) and Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya).

Travel across the Atlantic by his inner circle was also rare during his first mandate. Mike Pompeo, his Secretary of State between 2018 and 2021, traveled once to Senegal and Ethiopia. As for his wife Melania, she made a “diplomatic and humanitarian visit” in Kenya, colonial helmet on the head and scandal to boot.

Donald Trump has also never deployed an African policy strictly speaking. In 2018, the United States’ “strategy” was presented by John Bolton, national security adviser, during a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “He saw Africa as an economic battleground against Russian and Chinese interests, but there was no concrete policy, remembers Jeff Hawkins. The speech was America first, with thinly veiled threats against African countries that would not vote for the United States at international summits. »

Donald Trump would have liked to disengage from American aid, but the resistance of Congress made it possible to maintain the main initiatives and the allocated budgets. The American Agency for International Development (USAID), thanks in particular to Prosper Africa, a plan intended to promote trade and investment in Africa in order to counter China’s economic expansion, has remained the world’s leading donor to the continent. . Until 2021, the amount of its aid amounted to around $7 billion per year.

But the situation could change. From Egypt to Ethiopia, via Senegal or Ivory Coast, many African presidents have greeted “victory” of the Republican candidate and hoped, like Bola Tinubu in Nigeria, to be able “coperate more economically” with the United States. What will it really be? In addition to the Senate, Republicans could obtain an absolute majority in the House of Representatives, giving MAGAs all the levers of power.

“People imbued with his ideology will now occupy all hierarchical levels, especially in embassieswarns Jeff Hawkins. If the Prosper Africa programs were able to be maintained during the first mandate, it is because they did not involve the White House. The MAGA understood that it was necessary to massively change the bureaucracy to have an impact on society. »

Visa restrictions

Thousands of Africans have already suffered from Donald Trump’s extreme protectionism. For “security reasons”his administration had interrupted or restricted the issuance of visas for nationals of Libya, Somalia or Sudan (from 2017), Ghana (in 2019), then Chad or Nigeria (from 2020). The arrival of students of African origin to American universities was almost halved under the Trump era.

“He will try to cut funds allocated to certain African associations and NGOs, explains Charles Petrie, a senior United Nations official who has worked in Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This will have consequences on many sectors such as environmental protection, a subject which does not interest him. Aid for climate defense risks being redirected towards other causes such as support for evangelists or against anti-abortion associations on the continent. »

But the ideological approach of the new American president could also suit many African leaders irritated by the promotion of the rights of LGBTQ+ people often addressed by Westerners. “Countries like Uganda [où une loi votée en 2023 réprime très sévèrement l’homosexualité] once had a bad reputation, underlines Mamadou Diouf. With Trump, their leaders could now be decorated. »

On the military level, Donald Trump could maintain his support for the United States Africa Command (Africom), created in 2007 to coordinate security activities on the continent and support the fight against jihadist groups. “He never opposed it, but there was talk during his first mandate of a reduction of troops in Niger, recalls Jeff Hawkins. Closing the base near Niamey had been discussed, but the Nigeriens ultimately did it themselves. » Its assumed disinterest in the continent could also leave the field open to Russian paramilitary groups, such as Wagner and Afrika Corps.

Before giving up the supreme candidacy, Joe Biden chose to go to Angola at the end of the year for his first trip to the African continent. During her mandate, Kamala Harris, as vice-president, and Antony Blinken, secretary of state, had made several visits, such as in January 2024 (Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Angola) in order to “ emphasize respect for democracy”, Selon Anthony Blinken. “The nature of regimes, whether dictatorial or not, will matter much less for Trump than for his predecessors, concludes Jeff Hawkins. The Biden and Obama administrations were trying to talk about respect for human rights with African leaders. Trump will never support such a move. »

In “Project 2025,” a 900-page document published by the Heritage Foundation and intended to serve as a program for the new president, the only reference to Africa is the recognition of Somaliland, a self-proclaimed Republic of Somalia.