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In early December, President Trump brought together the heads of state of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a truce. The commitment involved an end to decades of conflict in the volatile eastern DRC, presenting it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations “to make a lot of money”.

Not long after, however, a sharply contrasting method for violence emerged. The administration announced that U.S. forces had carried out Christmas Day airstrikes in northwestern Nigeria, hitting sites associated with the Islamic State (IS). In a social media post, the President declared, My prior warnings indicated these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”

An Evident Change of Direction

These divergent actions highlights the core tenet of the U.S. engagement with sub-Saharan Africa in this period: a stepping back from championing democracy and human rights in favor of a stated focus on trade and ending wars—even as this fits with the nascent military strikes in Nigeria is yet unclear.

“We have moved past viewing Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a phrase often repeated for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” said a senior U.S. diplomat on a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

A White House spokesperson stated this, noting the President “approaches 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.”

Policy Impacts and Mixed Signals

This shift is consequential, but observers note it is premature to judge its results. The approach is complicated by the President’s personal style, which has included disputes 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.

Notable policy moves have included:

• Dismantlement of the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. A study estimates this could lead to millions of excess fatalities globally by 2030, with a significant portion in Africa.
• Implementing visa restrictions on citizens from numerous African countries and halting most refugee admissions.
• Starting a global tariff campaign that has harmed African businesses dependent on U.S. markets, such as textile manufacturers in Lesotho.
• Letting a longstanding U.S.-Africa trade preference act, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), to lapse without renewal.

Diplomatic Apathy and Tensions

Differing from his recent predecessors, the President did not travel to sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His most notable comment on African affairs was dubbing nations on the continent with a vulgar slur, which he later admitted using.

“Africa clearly runs dead bottom in his list of priorities, not just for him, but for the administration in general,” said the Africa program director for an international conflict resolution organization. He pointed to the recent U.S. National Security Strategy, which allocated only three paragraphs to Africa in a 29-page document.

A notable disagreement has broken out with South Africa, seemingly spurred 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 aligns beautifully now with 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.

Quid Pro Quo Relations and Selective Involvement

A similar tension emerged 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 conflicted with Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation composed between Christians and Muslims and suffering from security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts said that the harsh 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 brokered in the Congo conflict and dispatched a diplomat to try to forge a peace deal in Sudan’s civil war, to date without success. While the Congo deal appeared to have been broken quickly, it “helps to at least introduce a degree of diplomacy and a channel outside the battlefield,” noted one conflict expert.

Similar to Other Powers

Experts describe the new U.S. approach as paralleling that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have expanded 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,” commented one foreign policy analyst.

In practice, the current policy likely means that “a state that doesn’t have anything to put on the table … is not on his radar.”

“The engagement that we are talking about does not seek to spreading the milk of human kindness, as it were, it is about a quid-pro-quo posture towards Africa,” the journalist concluded.