In 1982, Israel’s dive-bombers embarked on an all-out assault on Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut. Dismayed by the incident, America’s 40th President, Ronald Reagan, placed a call to Israel’s Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. 20 minutes after his call, Israel halted the operation. Several years later, as revealed in the 2008 book, Reagan’s Disciple, the President had no idea he had that level of power over global affairs. It’s been four decades since this incident, and the global order has significantly changed, but America’s influence over global affairs, exercised through the office of its President, remains constant. This influence will now be transferred from its current custodian, Joe Biden, to Donald Trump in January.
Trump, America’s 45th President, will return as its 47th after defeating Kamala Harris in a closely fought election earlier this month. From Abuja to Kampala, and Nairobi to Johannesburg, various African leaders have reacted to Trump’s election with expected plaudits. However, beyond the rhetoric and realpolitik conversations about how Trump re-emerged after being considered a ‘diminished’ former President four years ago, it’s important to answer a few important questions: What will Trump’s foreign policy disposition look like in his new term? And what does this portend for the future of US-Africa relations?
Trade and Economic Ties
At the core of Trump’s campaign is his promise to ‘Make America Great Again’, a slogan that symbolises a protectionist approach that puts America first in its relationship with the rest of the world. This approach will significantly impact America’s trade relationship with the rest of the world, including Africa. But a Trump government is not necessarily bad news for the US-Africa trade relationship, as his previous administration demonstrates. To understand this, consider the ‘Prosper Africa’ initiative which Trump introduced as his signature program in 2018 during his first term in office.
The initiative, designed to support private US companies in their investment drive on the continent, was supported by the Better Utilisation of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act. This Act also established the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as a replacement for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and in the process increased the limit on investment by two times from $29 million to $60 million. Biden’s administration maintained this Trump flagship program to increase the two-way economic relationship between US and Africa with a focus on infrastructure, clean energy and healthcare. Overall, between 2019 and now, the initiative has facilitated investment worth $120.3 billion in 49 African countries and triggered non-country specific, regional investment worth over $9 billion. In Trump 2.0, Prosper Africa is expected to remain a key part of his foreign policy disposition towards trade and investment in Africa.
The second policy framework key to understanding what Trump’s return means for Washington’s economic ties with Africa is the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) signed by former President Bill Clinton in 2000. For 24 years, AGOA has served as the cornerstone of the US-Africa relationship, especially on trade. It was designed to ease the capacity of African producers to export products to America by mandating duty-free access to more than 1,800 products from the continent. In 2022 alone, African countries benefiting from AGOA exported $30 billion worth of goods to the United States. More than a third of this trade, precisely $10.2 billion, was duty-free because they were covered by the act. The biggest beneficiaries of the program in 2022 were South Africa, Nigeria with AGOA-exports to the US worth $3.6 and $3.5 billion respectively. To contextualise how important the program is to many African countries, Ethiopia offers some insights.
In 2022, the United States removed Ethiopia from the list of AGOA beneficiaries due to its disregard for human rights. Before its removal, the volume of Ethiopia’s exports to the United States increased by eighteen-fold from $29 million to $525 million between 2000 and 2021 and almost fifty percent of the exported products during this period were covered under the AGOA duty-free window. After its removal, an estimated 100,000 Ethiopian citizens, largely in its textile industry, lost their jobs. A similar degree of influence is not far-fetched in other African countries that are current beneficiaries of the program. In Lesotho for example, 74 percent of its exports to the US in 2023 were covered by AGOA.
Generally, under Biden’s administration, the volume of US imports from African countries under AGOA gradually increased, a sharp contrast to the gradual decline recorded during Trump’s first term. Biden has also consistently expressed support for the renewal and improvement of the Act because of his administration’s view that it’s a stepping stone for a forward-looking relationship between both parties, a perception that keys into its founding idea as a first step toward permanent free trade agreements.
However, despite the significant place of the initiative in Washington’s economic relationship with Africa, Trump’s return raises doubt about its future. During his first term, he continued AGOA and signed the modernization Act that enabled the U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to make cross-border and regional investments. But even at the time, he was sceptical about the future of the policy and expressed his interest to not renew it.
The Act will lapse in September 2025, a few months into Trump’s new administration and the US will decide on whether to continue it or not. But if Trump’s foreign policy disposition during his campaign is anything to go by, AGOA’s future may be under threat — or at the very least, will take an entirely new approach if renewed next year. The reason for this is not far-fetched. AGOA is an initiative that emphasises mutual cooperation which is slightly different from the explicit insular and transactional diplomacy Trump evangelises. Also, Washington’s overtures towards Africa during Trump’s first term indicates a preference for bilateral relationships with specific countries, as opposed to the multilateral posture of regional arrangements like AGOA.
The competition for increased influence on the continent between the US and China is expected to play a role here. Several African countries enjoy tariff-free export arrangements with China for several products similar to those captured under AGOA. This, coupled with China’s growing influence as the continent’s biggest trade partner, when factored into the decision of a Trump-led Washington on AGOA, will produce two likely outcomes. The first will see the renewal of the Act to ensure it continues to remain competitive against Beijing’s growing economic ties in Africa. The second is that it will be renewed but with a stricter definition of the governance standards, especially in terms of how the interest of beneficiary countries align with Washington’s. The latter will significantly affect countries like South Africa, the largest beneficiary of AGOA, that has prominently taken anti-US foreign policy stances.
Will Aid Make Way?
Another component of the US-Africa relationship that a Trump presidency will impact is aid to the continent. There is a widespread assumption that there will be a fall in the volume of aid from Washington with Trump’s return but the numbers do not exactly show this. For instance, during Obama’s administration between 2009 and 2016, US aid to Africa hovered between $7 and $8 billion annually, according to data from the US Congressional research service. During Trump’s first term between 2017 and 2020, the volume of US aid to the continent remained at the same level at around $7 billion annually. In fact, overall, under the last three US administrations – Barack Obama, Trump, and Biden — Washington’s aid to Africa has remained at a constant level, fluctuating between $7 and $8 billion. As far as data goes, the volume of aid to Africa under Trump’s administration is expected to remain within a constant range.
However, this data does not tell all the story. During Trump’s first outing, he made attempts to cut the country’s foreign aid globally, including to Africa. But the US congress repeatedly rejected his proposals. But the political climate of Trump’s second term will be different. Aside from winning the popular vote and electoral college, the Republican party has taken over the Senate majority and is on track to hold a razor-thin majority in the House. This, coupled with the fact that Trump’s control over the internal affairs of his party is stronger than ever before, means he would find it easier to get legislative approval for his foreign policy proposals.
This is even more concerning because, one of the aid programs Trump is likely to slice is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), introduced by President George W. Bush in 2003. When the PEPFAR Extension Act of 2018 which extended it till September 2023 expired, Republican lawmakers opposed its renewal over claims that it promotes abortion services. It was only granted a short-term extension till March 2024. In 2022 alone, the US allocated $3.82 billion of its total aid to the continent to HIV/AIDS initiatives exercised through PEPFAR. But with Trump’s return and a Republican trifecta, the State Department-led interagency initiative which accounts for Washington’s largest aid support to Africa is at risk. Other aspects of Washington’s health interventions in Africa with an annual value of at least $5 billion since 2008 are also at risk of being cut.
However, a key factor to consider here is the point of view of Marco Rubio who Trump has named his next Secretary of State. In this role, he will significantly shape the direction of the administration’s foreign policy over the next four years. In 2019, as a member of the US Senate, Rubio visited Africa on an oversight trip where he declared his strong support for Bush’s PEPFAR as a successful initiative that has saved millions of lives on the continent. This coupled with his long-standing support for global aid that is transparent, will factor into decisions on aid flow from the US to Africa in Trump 2.0. But there’s a catch here. While Rubio’s viewpoint on the matter slightly differs from Trump’s, he may not necessarily push for it. In fact, he has shifted his position on several foreign policy issues in recent years to align with that of Trump whom he critically opposed in the past.
Climate Change
Trump has never shied away from the fact that he’s not the biggest champion of the fight against climate change — not only that, he has described it as a hoax and a scam. During his first administration, he withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, a move that the Biden administration has since reversed. Aside from reversing Trump’s action, Biden also significantly invested in helping other countries, including those across Africa, shore up their clean energy and climate adaptation efforts. In the country’s International Climate Finance Plan earlier this year, the current administration allocated US$11 billion to help developing countries.
The implication this has for Africa in Trump’s second return is that the focus of US financial investment and support in Africa will shift away from climate change to other issues with immediate outputs. Even though the instant short-term results this will generate will appeal to some countries, it will have a significant effect on efforts to build climate resilience across the continent especially as African countries continue to struggle to raise the level of climate finance required to meet its climate targets.
No doubt, there are several fundamentals in the US-Africa relationship that will remain constant under Trump because of the bipartisan consensus they enjoy from Washington. Nevertheless, there are significant differences – positively and negatively – in how Trump’s second administration will approach its relationship with Africa that demands that countries across the continent refine their expectations of the United States.
