What Exactly is the Trump Africa Policy?

By Gregory Simpkins

At the outset of the current Trump administration, it was widely believed that his transactional mindset would facilitate US-Africa trade and boost both the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Prosper Africa initiative, which the first Trump administration created. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in his first 100 days.

Instead, it seems that there has been a series of anti-Africa decisions and no effort to establish partnerships with the continent.

A Contrast with Trump 1.0

This is much unlike the first term, when U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) took the lead in establishing humanitarian, development and trade programs with countries on the continent and assumed leadership of Prosper Africa. USAID Administrator Mark Green and Deputy Administrator Ramsey Day understood and respected Africa and Africans.

I was hired largely to manage our engagement with AGOA that I had worked on while employed by the House of Representatives and to help envision how the Prosper Africa initiative would work.

It was a pro-Africa environment that I worked in. We were able to beat back an attempt to create a US or China paradigm known as Clear Choice, turning it into one that promoted African relations without forcing African governments to choose between relations with either country.

Emergence of the New Policy

Until recently, we could only speculate as to what the Trump 2.0 Africa policy was.

However, according to a April 20 report by Bloomberg News on a story in the New York Times, the previous Africa vision in Trump 1.0 has been abandoned. The new policy calls for the dissolution of the State Department’s Africa Bureau in favor of using special envoys as called for to intervene on issues such as counterterrorism, critical mineral trade, and selective bilateral diplomacy, such as the current negotiations with Rwanda to accept illegal immigrants expelled from the United States.

Such an organizational change has not been confirmed by the Trump administration.

The most recent State Department organizational chart shows the Africa Bureau at State intact. My contacts tell me that this false report was an effort to embarrass Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

It also came at a time when the United States is considering the closing of 10 embassies and 17 consulates, including four in Africa: Lesotho, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

If the fictitious reorganization with Africa on the outs was true, it would have meant that Africa only counts when needed.

Given the potential for growth in African economies, it would be more than short-sighted to place Africa outside the realm of the US foreign policy hierarchy. It would have been at once insulting to Africans and others in the African Diaspora to see the continent and its issues shunted to the side except when needed.

Moreover, it would be truly puzzling if such an abrupt turnaround on policy toward the countries and people of Africa was occurring. AGOA was kept and was vibrant in Trump 1.0.

After all, Prosper Africa was created to develop significant and enduring partnerships between the United States and collaborating African governments and the US and African private sectors.
Africa is not just important because of its mineral resources, and to treat this matter in this way would have been to return to the days when colonizing countries felt Africa only mattered because of what they could gain from it and its people.

Expert Assessments and Strategic Advice

There are numerous assessments of this new Trump Africa policy. In one conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, African countries are advised to use their mineral wealth as leverage to make deals with the great dealmaker.

“Critical minerals may be the key leverage to negotiating mutually beneficial trade and investment relationships with the U.S., other factors permitting,” the Carnegie assessment stated. According to Carnegie, this leverage could ensure that trade preference programs such as AGOA and the Generalized System of Preferences are extended and fully functional.

Challenges to Development-Focused Policies

However, if it is not already clear what the benefits of such programs are without arm-twisting, how can we have faith that trade preferences for an under the cover region such as Africa will return to any semblance of prominence? And what of the more development oriented portion of US policy?

In its analysis of Trump’s Africa policy, the Center for Global Development (CGD) stated that despite longstanding bipartisan support for US global health spending “the administration’s new budget request would deliver an enormous blow. While the document promises to sustain the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding ‘for any current beneficiaries,’ it offers few other assurances even for HIV/AIDS programming.

Cuts to Humanitarian Aid and Global Health

It’s not clear, for instance, the extent to which other PEPFAR activities beyond the provision of antiretroviral medicines might be sustained.

In examining the proposed budget, CGD finds that despite professions of continued humanitarian assistance, the skinny budget presented makes that quite difficult. “In the process of dismantling USAID, the administration has already dramatically curbed US capacity to respond to emergency humanitarian situations abroad, but the funding reductions are nevertheless stark.

And, of the amount included, US$1.5 billion is requested for the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund, which gives the president the flexibility to draw down (or not) to meet specific urgent and unexpected needs,” CGD finds.

“Also notable is that the budget would zero out funding for the largest international food aid program, P.L. 480 Title II. Delivering in-kind international food aid is notoriously inefficient, but it benefits from strong domestic constituencies since it directly supports US farmers and shippers.

Lawmakers from farm states have been vocal in the importance of preserving this life-saving food assistance, but the administration is taking a different view.”

“First, Trump is directing the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to review all U.S. trade agreements and recommend revisions to achieve reciprocity and concessions from partner countries. Second, the USTR is authorized to negotiate bilateral or sector-specific trade agreements to obtain export market access.

Furthermore, the recent threat and application of tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China indicates that Trump is serious about overhauling U.S. global trade relations,” CGD points out.

As I stated in an earlier blog post, despite the current pause in US global tariffs, African governments may find it difficult to negotiate out of harm’s way in a short periods of time.

Implications for Businesses and Democracy

The advisory firm 14 North says the shift to an America First Trade Policy means major corporations and investors can no longer rely as heavily on government support as before.

“With fewer resources for on-the-ground assistance, companies will need to outsource functions traditionally handled by embassies, such as understanding the political and economic situation, liaising with the government, navigating regulations, and responding to and managing crises,” 14 North states.

If major corporations are concerned about going it alone without meaningful assistance from the US government, what will small and medium enterprises experience in their efforts to create linkages with African counterparts? And what happens to support for democratization and human rights?

If US Africa policy is only about what we need to do or what we need to have, then both democracy and human rights will be further isolated than before when it always took a back seat on foreign policy matters. President Trump promised to abandon the cultural interference in Africa engaged in by the Biden administration, but it would seem that trying to promote issues such as free and fair elections and due process will now be subject to the negotiations of the moment.

In the past, there was a strong Africa constituency in the House of Representatives, followed to some extent by select members of the Senate. It will be interesting to see what the reaction will be from the House Subcommittee on Africa or the Senate Subcommittee on Africa & Global Health Policy on the current status of US Africa policy.

Clearly, Congressional leadership has not reflected the fictitious foreign policy oversight structure.

The Road Ahead

One can easily see that Republicans in Congress are giving the Trump administration grace to play out their new policy initiatives, but how long will they stand by when a major part of US foreign policy in the last several decades is in doubt? As for Democrats, will they wage any effort to promote a robust Africa policy without resorting to partisan recriminations that would be unlikely to change matters and could make the situation worse?

It may take a little while for Congress – both those who represent the African Diaspora and development and human rights interests and those who represent farmers, ranchers and manufacturers – to react in a meaningful way to the drastic changes, or more accurately, the abandonment of US Africa policy. But a reckoning surely lies ahead at some point.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.