In just about two weeks, President Donald John Trump will be history as the sitting President of the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world. By implication, Donald Trump from January 20, 2021 by 12 noon, will seize to be the most powerful man in the world.
If he does not make any trip to Africa before he vacates office, which is as surefooted as the earth rotating on its axis and night changing into day, then Trump will join 37 other American Presidents who never set foot in Africa during their tenure. Only eight PROTUS ever did (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama), according to records.
From his comments and body language, Trump thinks little of Africa, a continent of 1.35 billion people
he condescendingly dismissed as a shithole and particularly loathes some of its leaders, one of whom he decorated with an unbefitting epaulet as revealed in a 2018 Financial Times report, saying he never wanted to meet anyone that lifeless again.
There is no love lost between a strategic continent and the leader of the free world. Africa also thinks its relationship with the US deteriorated during the Trump era. In 2017 for instance, of all the Foreign Direct Investments Africa attracted, less than 1% came from the US while only 1.2% of US exports went to the continent. From 2014 to 2017, US goods shipped to Africa declined to $14 billion from $25 billion.
Some of the previous American presidents introduced various programmes like the 2000 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to cultivate stronger ties with continental Africa. Africans also ranked among major beneficiaries of the US Diversity Visa Programme, the visa lottery policy. That programme has in reality helped the US to suck some of the brightest brains out of Africa.
No one will begrudge the US for that. If you don’t treasure your assets, someone who does will grab it! Indeed, many of the beneficiaries of that programme are grateful to the US for giving them a second chance in life while some are furious with African leaders for impoverishing the people and squandering the continent's resources.
Trump, however, did not hide his disgust for the programme and he capitalised on a Department of Homeland Security report that a man who drove a rented truck into a crowd of cyclists and pedestrians in New York was a 2010 beneficiary of the programme from Uzbekistan. He announced that he had requested Congress to initiate moves to dismantle the Programme which makes available 55,000 immigrant visas annually to diversify the immigrant population in the US. Yes, throw the baby away with the bathwater!
Yet, the relationship between Trump and Africa was not all gloom and doom. Early December, 2020, the
Trump administration reversed a 30-year policy which categorised Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Trump regime also facilitated the normalisation of relationship between Sudan and Israel as well as Morocco and Israel.
For acquiescing as scripted, US recognised Morocco as having rights over Western Sahara contrary to a pact on the vexed issue by world leaders. Additionally, the US agreed to sell arms worth over $1 billion to Morocco. Trump is the grand commander of functional diplomatic generosity. If you do according to his wish, he will pull all the stops to reward your steadfastness.
There is also a strong military collaboration between the US and Africa, a tradition which has not
been diminished by the papered over tension between the duo. Out of the 800 military bases the US is said to maintain in 80 countries, theintercept.com claimed 27 are in 15 African countries, based on the information it gathered from the Pentagon map.
Africa may currently seem like a statistically insignificant continent to be toyed with; the outlook
shows that the fortune of the continent is about to rise astronomically. Now that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is taking off at full steam, the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the continent is projected to ramp up from $2.9 trillion in 2019 to $29 trillion by 2050. Just combine the current GDP of the EU and US and you will get a drift of the kind of powerhouse Africa will become in 30 years.
African people and African leaders may not openly admit it but there is an increasing gulf between continental Africa and the US. It is a gulf that is compelling African leaders and businesses to gravitate more towards China, the new powerful force which is more receptive to treating Africa like an equal partner to be nurtured and supported. Not even a warning that many African countries may lose their sovereignty to Chinese debts has slowed the momentum. Africa needs help and help it will take from any willing ally.
Between 2000 and 2018, the value of Chinese loan to African governments and state-owned enterprises grossed $148 billion while Beijing and its banks are willing to do more. Officially, China does not show a condescending attitude to Africa. Whatever it feels about the continent, China keeps under wrap in the depth of its diplomatic closet. Sometimes, whatever you do not know does not hurt.
Africa is convinced Trump does not care a fig about it and many Africans are hoping that the Joe Biden Presidency may offer the US and the continent a fresh start to reset their relationship.
While China’s lead over the US in Africa may seem to be accelerating to a commanding height, the US has a chance to recalibrate its relationship with Africa by working with the continent in a collaborative manner to eradicate poverty through the enhancement of the capacity of the people in the region. It is a strategy that will, in due course, shift Africa’s momentum of affinity in favour of the US.
Africa does not have to be a zero-sum game for Europe and America where the continent must be kept underdeveloped in order to continuously provide the West with cheap natural resources. The US can help Africa to develop and then creatively and proportionately decide what it wants to keep from the fortune made through its support.
Africa is tired of wearing the toga of the poorest continent in the world despite having the world’s largest concentration of natural resources in commercial quantity. The continent has served notice that it will no longer be an easy prey to manipulate for unbridled socio-economic and political dominion again.
