U.S.-Africa Relations Need a Reset 
 

U.S. presidential elections have always been of interest to Africa because of the crucial role the United States plays in the stability and development of the continent. Interest in the forthcoming election is particularly high because of the widespread perception across Africa that its strategic relevance to the United States has waned in the recent past―leading to relegation, neglect, and a lack of empathy.  

This comes against the backdrop of the debilitating situation in many parts of the continent, marked by deteriorating state fragility, increased poverty, poor public health, conflicts, terrorism, insecurity, democratic reversals, huge foreign debts, and the ravages of climate change. Those pressing issues require greater support from the United States, arguably Africa’s greatest ally.  

To date, the United States’ involvement on the continent has focused primarily on humanitarian and democratic interventions. While these are helpful, they have been at the expense of more critical engagements around development goals such as reducing debt problems, mitigating state fragility, and addressing the harms of climate change. This has given room to rival superpowers such as Russia and China whose inroads have expanded rapidly. 

Thus, the hope in Africa is that the U.S. presidential election can provide the opportunity for a positive reengagement with the continent’s flashpoints of decay and instability. Part of that hope is that the United States will support the reform and strengthening of the UN and other multilateral bodies to make them more inclusive and equitable agents of global governance. Developments in Sudan, Congo, and the countries of the Sahel―all of which have seen geopolitical realignment toward China and Russia―have already signaled growing discontent and impatience with the West as Africa struggles to surmount its existential challenges.  

It remains to be seen if the forthcoming U.S. presidential election will make the United States more responsive to Africa. If the debates and policy discussions in which Africa has featured very tangentially are anything to go by, the chances of a fundamental shift appear quite slim. Still, the hope is that a more liberal globalist policy posture will offer room for renegotiating a new trajectory of U.S.-Africa relations that addresses Africa qua Africa. 

This realignment of U.S.-Africa relations will certainly require a tempering of the U.S.-centric rhetoric that has driven conversations on immigration, trade, aid, and multilateralism. However, this realignment is necessary if the United States is going to successfully compete with China and Russia on the continent.  

A Second Trump Administration Does Not Bode Well for U.S.-Africa Ties 
 

The outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election could considerably alter the direction and substance of African capitals’ bilateral relations with Washington.  

The Joe Biden–Kamala Harris administration has made significant efforts to effectively course-correct and reframe U.S.-Africa relations, primarily through its 2022 Strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives include fostering open societies, delivering democratic and security dividends, advancing economic opportunity, and supporting climate adaptation.  

This strategy has been bolstered by numerous high-level working visits to the continent, the mobilisation and facilitation of new investment and trade agreements, and renewed commitments toward supporting democratic transitions and processes. Those efforts were solidified at the December 2022 U.S.-Africa Leader’s Summit, in which delegations from forty-nine African countries converged in Washington to discuss and explore strengthened bilateral relations based on shared interests and values.  

More recently, the United States’ calls for UN Security Council reform, which now include its official support for two permanent seats for African countries, have further underscored the current administration’s recognition and desire for deeper bilateral relations with African states.  

Despite those efforts, relations with certain African states have been strained by broader geopolitical developments, such as the ongoing conflicts between Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, and the ongoing conflict across the Sahel. Additionally, these relationships have been stressed by the concomitant efforts of the United States (and other major global powers) to curry favour among states in the Global South over their particular worldviews concerning the future of international order. 

Should Kamala Harris emerge victorious in November, it is likely that the substance and direction of U.S. policy and strategy toward the continent will continue as it has under the Biden administration.  

In fact, this overarching strategy could be pursued with even greater investment and vigour by Washington to secure key allies, ward off the influence of China and Russia, and ensure broad continental support for its core foreign policy and security objectives over the coming decades―as enshrined within its 2022 National Security Strategy.  

In this scenario, key U.S. initiatives such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the Just Transition Partnerships, and more recently launched efforts like the African Democratic and Political Transitions initiative and the 21st Century Partnership for African Security, will likely spur more substantive bilateral engagements between Washington and African capitals. 

A second Donald Trump administration, on the other hand, would likely introduce a much greater degree of policy uncertainty.  

The first Trump administration’s foreign policy, characterised by America First nationalism, unilateralism, myopia, and explicit derision directed at certain African states and their people, significantly soured bilateral ties between many African capitals and Washington.  

During this period, Africa, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, appeared to be under-prioritised by the U.S. foreign policy establishment, with a notable lack of high-level exchanges. The Trump administration had unclear foreign policy priorities and objectives for the region and a lack of meaningful new initiatives. There were also considerable delays in appointments to key U.S. diplomatic posts across the continent.  

Accordingly, African leaders view the prospect of a second Trump administration as signifying yet another reversal in U.S. foreign policy toward the region. This result would call into question the various initiatives, commitments, and priorities established for the continent under Biden, and would likely result in a net setback in meaningful international cooperation moving forward. 

Africa Poses Steep Challenges and Opportunities for New U.S. Administration 
 

As is typical in the U.S. election cycle, U.S. Africa policy does not figure prominently—or at all—in most discussions of the candidates’ foreign policy platforms. That’s a shame, because Africa is changing rapidly, with old relationships and regimes under new stress.   

Metastasizing instability in the Sahel, tension and the threat of state collapse in the Horn, and continued fragility in Central Africa are bringing insecurity to more societies, and opportunity to external actors promising to tamp down threats in exchange for resources and influence. Afropessimism is lazy and reductive, as some changes do bring new opportunities to unleash the continent’s potential, but there is no escaping the reality that the region confronts massive challenges. At the same time, the United States is struggling with an inability to protect its own interests and build lasting partnerships in the midst of so much turmoil at home and abroad.  

Already, the U.S. election cycle is providing fuel for forces wishing to undermine the very idea of democratic governance in Africa, as complaints of rigging and political violence undermine faith in the integrity of the world’s oldest democracy. In a continent that has seen a rash of military takeovers and where polls show popular dismay with how democracy is working, struggles in the United States only exacerbate existing doubts. 

As for the electoral outcome, another Donald Trump administration would presumably operate much like its first iteration, meaning that Africa policy will be largely an afterthought and the climate-related issues so important to the continent will be ignored by the United States. Other major and middle powers, like China, Russia, and the Gulf states that understand the region to be an important part of their broader strategic interests will likely benefit.   

A Kamala Harris administration is less predictable, although it could look a great deal like a continuation of the Joe Biden administration’s approach to the region, which featured some commendable efforts including the Lobito corridor investments. But, too often, the United States in Africa has been inflexible, ponderous, unresponsive, or just plain absent.  

What U.S. foreign policy in Africa needs is not so much a swapping out of personnel as a bigger change in mindset, moving African issues out of the periphery of strategic thinking and waking up to the reality that other major and middle powers have been far more ambitious in their engagements in Africa for years now, sometimes to the detriment of U.S. interests. Critical supply chains and the next-generation international institutions and norms will be determined in large part by African decisions.  

Seriously reckoning with the most urgent interests of Africans and finding common ground with the interests of the United States needs to happen not just among Africa specialists, but anyone serious about U.S. foreign policy. To succeed, any administration will have to drag the foreign policy establishment out of its anachronistic ideas about Africa’s relevance.