During the first week of December, the U.S. President convened the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a peace deal. He promised an end to decades of conflict in the volatile eastern DRC, describing it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations to generate significant profit.
Shortly after, however, a sharply contrasting approach to conflict emerged. It was declared that U.S. forces had conducted Christmas Day airstrikes in a region of Nigeria, striking sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). Via a statement posted online, the President warned, “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.”
This dichotomy encapsulates the core principle of the U.S. engagement with sub-Saharan Africa in this administration: a moving away from promoting democracy and human rights in favor of a stated focus on economic deals and stopping hostilities—despite the fact that this squares with the new military strikes in Nigeria is an open question.
“We have moved past viewing Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a slogan commonly used for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” stated a high-ranking U.S. state department official in a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.
A presidential spokesperson echoed this, commenting the President “has treated Africa not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse partner. Under his leadership, American capital, technology, and diplomacy are helping African nations achieve stability, build real energy independence, and turn their natural wealth into jobs and opportunity.”
This shift is significant, but observers caution it is too soon to gauge its impact. The approach is intertwined with the President’s unconventional diplomacy, which has included feuds with long-standing U.S. partners and insults directed at 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 a scholar for Africa studies at a prominent foreign policy council.
Key decisions have included:
Differing from his predecessors, the President avoided sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His best-known engagement with African affairs was referring to nations on the continent with a derogatory term, which he later confirmed using.
“Africa clearly runs dead bottom in his list of priorities, not just for him, but for the administration in general,” remarked the Africa program director for an international conflict resolution organization. He pointed to the recent U.S. National Security Strategy, which gave only three paragraphs to Africa in a 29-page document.
A significant disagreement has developed with South Africa, apparently influenced 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 narrative of a ‘white genocide’ happening in South Africa fits perfectly 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 similar confrontation flared 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 split between Christians and Muslims and suffering from security crises affecting both groups.
Some Nigerian analysts noted that the stern rhetoric may have prompted the government into greater action on security. After the Christmas airstrikes, Nigerian officials said they had approved the U.S. intervention and might collaborate on further actions.
The President has made no secret his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. His administration has mediated in the Congo conflict and dispatched a diplomat to try to end the fighting in Sudan’s civil war, so far without success. While the Congo deal seems to have been broken quickly, it “helps to at least introduce a degree of diplomacy and a channel outside the battlefield,” said one conflict expert.
Some analysts see the new U.S. approach as paralleling that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have deepened their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on commercial interests.
“This is a delayed recognition of African agency, and to that extent, it represents, at least at the level of symbols, taking Africa very seriously,” said one foreign policy analyst.
Ultimately, the new approach likely means that “a nation 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 transactional posture towards Africa,” the observer stated.
