Trump’s Africa policy: Unclear and uncertain
Posted on February 1, 2017 by Johnnie Carson
>From trade to human rights, what will Trump’s policies towards Africa
look like? Obama’s former US Assistant Secretary of State for African
Affairs highlights some likely changes.
Africa doesn't appear to be high up on Trump's agenda, but it may
still face a rocky ride under his administration. Credit: Gage
Skidmore.
Africa doesn’t appear to be high up on Trump’s agenda, but it may
still face a rocky ride under his administration. Credit: Gage
Skidmore.
Africa is not likely to emerge as one of US President Donald Trump’s
foreign policy priorities. But the continent is almost certain to be
affected by the fallout from his hardline foreign policy views, his
strong anti-Muslim pronouncements, his vow to eliminate Islamic
terrorism, and his “America First” economic policies. And the
prospects are probably bleak for any bold new development initiatives
targeted at Africa like those rolled by his predecessors Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Over the past two decades, US Africa policy has enjoyed strong
bipartisan congressional support from both Democrats and Republicans
working together. But without a strong commitment to Africa in the
White House or Executive Branch under Trump, the major programmes that
have defined US policy in Africa for the past two decades will
probably struggle to sustain the previous funding levels and state
support.
Trump has exhibited no interest in Africa. Nor have any of his
closest White House advisors. Except for some campaign comments about
Libya and Benghazi, the new president has made very few remarks about
the continent. And despite his global network of hotel, golf and
tourist holdings, he appears to have no investments or business
relationships in sub-Saharan Africa.
The one member of Trump’s inner circle that may have an interest in
Africa is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He has some experience of
Africa because of his many years in the oil industry with ExxonMobil,
most of whose successful dealings on the continent were with largely
corrupt and authoritarian leaders.
If Tillerson appoints a moderate and experienced Africa expert to run
the Africa Bureau – and there are a dozen Republicans who meet that
definition – and if he is able to keep policy in the control of the
State Department, African issues may not be pushed aside completely.
But irrespective of who manages Trump’s Africa policy, there will be a
major change from recent previous administrations.
President Obama pushed a strong democratic agenda and launched half a
dozen new development programmes including Power Africa, Feed the
Future and the Global Health Initiative. Before him, Bush’s
“compassionate” approach led to the establishment of the President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge
Corporation (MCC), two of America’s most widely-praised programmes on
the continent.
But Trump’s world view is more myopic. He believes in “America First”
and questions the value of the United Nations, NATO and the European
Union. He is strongly opposed to nation-building and large overseas
assistance programmes. He looks suspiciously at trade agreements. And
he has railed against Muslims and other foreigners, while he has
publically praised dictators and tyrants.
Under Trump, any focus on Africa will likely be on military and
security issues, not democracy, good governance or human rights.
These policies are likely to find greater favour with Africa’s
autocrats than civil society or local business leaders.
What can we expect in the different areas of US engagement?
Security and counterterrorism
We should expect an uptick in military and security cooperation with a
number of African nations, especially those facing terrorist threats
given Trump’s promise to wage an all-out war on Islamist militancy.
The US role in the battle against al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and armed
groups in the Sahel region will probably be expanded, and African
support for US actions may become a new litmus test for closer
relations.
Democracy and governance
We should probably expect a sharp drop off in White House support for
democracy and governance programmes. Trump has denounced
nation-building abroad and said during his inaugural address that he
will “not seek to impose” America’s “way of life on anyone”. His
policies will almost certainly result in less spending on the
promotion of political reforms, democracy and the conduct of free and
fair elections in Africa.
Human rights
The Obama administration routinely spoke out against torture,
detention and extrajudicial killings, and pushed for greater gender
equality and LGBTI rights. This will not happen under a Trump
administration which has praised some authoritarian leaders, asserted
the value of torture, and already curbed funding for women’s health
programmes. The recent executive order excluding citizens from seven
majority Muslim countries, including three in Africa, is an indication
that respect for human rights and civil liberties will take a back
seat to notions of security.
Business relations
Trump’s “America First” stance will probably lead to the collapse of
Obama’s major economic initiatives in Africa. Trade Africa, a regional
effort to boost trade among five East African nations; Doing Business
in the Africa, designed to encourage American businesses to trade with
the continent; and the high-level US-Africa business summits Obama
hosted are all in jeopardy. With Trump complaining about American
companies moving jobs overseas and touting a new form of economic
nationalism, dealing with Africa economically will not be a priority.
Trade
The strongly bipartisan African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has
been the centrepiece of American trade policy in Africa, but its
non-reciprocal concessionary treatment runs counter to Trump’s trade
doctrine. Trump’s administration has focused on TPP (the Asia free
trade deal) and NAFTA (the North American free trade agreement) so
far, but at some point AGOA, which was recently renewed until 2025,
will inevitably come to the attention of someone in the White House.
Despite bipartisan support, the best hope for AGOA is that it will be
allowed to remain in place with declining support until it expires. If
there is an effort to reframe it, the US will probably demand African
nations open their markets to American goods on a reciprocal basis.
Exchange programmes
One of Obama’s most successful programmes was the Young African
Leaders Initiative (YALI), which brings several hundred young African
professionals and entrepreneurs to the US for six weeks each summer.
Although it has the potential to be as significant to Africa as the
Fulbright Programme was to Europe, YALI could be an early casualty.
YALI is not covered by any congressional legislation and is not funded
beyond 2017. Previous Republican administrations have cut back
exchange programmes and YALI has no natural constituency in the Trump
administration.
Climate change
Climate change is a major problem for Africa, but many in the Trump
administration have denied or downplayed its importance, threatening
to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement. UN and US
studies have shown that Africa will be impacted by climate change more
than any other region of the world and that African nations are the
least prepared to deal with it. A shift on the global agreement will
have damaging ripple effects across the continent.
USAID
Trump has said that rebuilding America’s deteriorating infrastructure
would be one of his domestic priorities, and as he sets about this,
USAID’s overseas programmes could become an easy target to be cut.
Trump has already criticised them as wasteful and corrupt, and his
administration might easily align itself with Republicans who fought
to reduce development spending and eliminate the Export-Import Bank
and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation – two organisations
that have supported America’s trade, aid and development projects in
Africa and around the world.
Benign neglect
It is possible that Trump’s term in office will surprise us on Africa.
Republican administrations have outperformed on this front before.
President Bush certainly did, and his two landmark development
initiatives – PEPFAR and MCC – remain extremely popular.
But given the absence of any serious White House interest in Africa,
Secretary Tillerson may become the key American player on Africa. He
could put Africa policy on a solid footing by appointing an
experienced Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs;
supporting key Bush- and Obama-era food, health and power development
initiatives; and maintaining the business-focused policies of Obama.
He could also throw his support behind USAID, the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation and EXIM Bank, all of which strengthen US
economic and development objectives in Africa.
Congressional leaders could also play an important role by maintaining
their strong two-decade-long bipartisan support for Africa and
encouraging the administration to prioritise and not to marginalise
Africa.
But realistically, perhaps the most the continent can really hope for
under Trump is “benign neglect”.
Johnnie Carson was US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
from 2009 to 2012. He is currently a Senior Advisor at the United
States Institute of Peace and a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute
at Yale University.
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2 thoughts on “Trump’s Africa policy: Unclear and uncertain”
Stephen Lande says:
February 1, 2017 at 11:37 pm
Johnny Carson is right on the mark in the areas which he knows the
best–diplomacy, military, foreign assistance, etc. His explanations
from an Insider of the Obama Admin is welcomed reading.
AGOA has been oversold–only helped a handful of countries in one
sector (garments) except for already developed South Africa and strong
Chinese investment in Ethiopia.
The absence of a Trump blueprint for Africa is a positive. Since
it provides African governments and private sector leaders in Africa
and in the US to draft and present a plan. Unlike other regions, with
55 countries, Africa must be treated as a group since individual
countries are too small to support US based supply chains and
distribition networks. Thus, Trump must engage African countries as a
whole, not individually as is being done elsewhere.
Africa with the fastest growing young population increasingly
schooled in high technology offers the perfect complement to President
Trump’s goal to bring manufacturing back to the US. Simply put the
type of assembly Africa is likely to perform does not create the
employment which is targeted for the US. In fact, its ability to
assemble high value components produced in the US, ship assembled
components for more sophisticated assembly in the US and to assemble
US components for white goods for sale in Africa all argue for a
partnership in which both benefit from any Trump success.
There are no guarantees and no hard signals yet, it is very
possible that a determined effort can convince President Trump to
follow those policies which can energize Africa’s transformational
entry into manufacturing which AGOA did not accomplish.
Tom Tieku says:
February 2, 2017 at 4:14 am
Reading this post one gets the impression that the Obama
administration cared about Africa beyond symbolism ad electoral vote
or prioritized Africa. Perhaps Mr. Carson needs to be reminded that
the Obama administration released its Africa ‘policy’ in the last year
of his first term. And the ‘policy’ , as a very knowledgeable
Africanist charitably put it, was based on Africa that ceased to exist
30years before it was released.
The Obama administration was more hawkish in Africa than any U.S.
government before it. It expanded Bush’s counter terrorism programs,
ramped up the drone program and killed more Africans than the combined
number of Africans killed during the Bush and Clinton administrations.
Obama’s securitization programs strengthed the hands of autocrats in
African states it considered strategic in U. S war on terrorism.
Indeed, Obama government promoted securitization rather than
democracy. If the Obama administration had promoted democracy, it
would have called the military overthrow of the democratic government
in Egypt a coup like the African Union did and suspend the billions of
dollars of military aid it gave to the Egyptian army, some of which
were used to suppress free expression and harass democracy activists.
I can go on and on. The bottom line is that Obama and his close
advisors didn’t care enough about Africa and in many instances behaved
as if they were ashamed to be associated with Africa.
For an African-American president, Obama had the perfect chance to
build on the Pan-African ideas first articulated by his forebears to
create a continental-focused policy and programs with long lasting
impacts. Instead, he created small uncoordinated, eclectic,
lobby-driven, wasteful, adhoc and poorly-funded programs. By Mr.
Carson’s own admission, Obama’s signature program YALI is not funded
beyond this year.
A Pan-African approach and policy would have cost less money,
discourage corruption as it would have been easy to detect, manage and
would have reflected the directions the continent was heading when he
came to office. Obama could have been remembered as the person who
turned ideas of African-Americans like Padmore into reality. And he
could have done that by saving American tax payers money. Instead he
would probably be remembered as the U.S President who gave Africa to
the Chinese and watched as democratic gains in Africa were rolled
back.
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