\nhttps:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/04\/17\/trump-us-africa-relationship-column-00293046\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“If an African government wants strong relations with Washington, including future development assistance, it must pay up in other ways \u2014 ranging from giving access to minerals to accepting deportees, Trump backers told me.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“Trump and his team are fast-tracking efforts to achieve a goal that other U.S. presidents, including his four immediate Democratic and Republican predecessors, articulated to varying degrees \u2014 to shift the nature of the U.S. relationship with Africa. Each saw some progress, but none was willing to slash aid so deeply and suddenly.
\nThe overwhelming sense among African officials is that they need to pony up what they can to effectively buy Trump\u2019s love \u2014 the transactionalism for which he\u2019s well known.<\/p>\n
The Democratic Republic of Congo is offering access to critical minerals in exchange for U.S. help battling rebel forces; Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump\u2019s daughter Tiffany, was named recently to a role looking into such potential deals in the DRC and other African countries. And Somalia has offered the U.S. operational control over certain ports.<\/p>\n
Angola will likely keep U.S. backing for the Lobito Corridor, a rail project that can help the U.S. access minerals. Togo, which is touting its track record in quietly mediating some African conflicts, could also see continued U.S. support, according to a former U.S. official familiar with African diplomatic circles. (A Togo official did not respond to questions about the mediation pitch.)<\/p>\n
Some African nations will have an easier time staying on the U.S. radar simply because of their political sway on the continent (hey there, Kenya and Ethiopia), importance to energy markets (Nigeria) or other one-off reasons. Some are more financially and politically able to absorb the shock of losing U.S. aid than others. But some will have little to offer for Washington\u2019s benefit, and they may choose to side with U.S. adversaries on the global stage \u2014 whether at the United Nations or in a war.<\/p>\n
At least one, South Africa, is likely to be in the cold for a long time under Trump. The president\u2019s team is infuriated by South Africa\u2019s foreign policy choices, especially its diplomatic attacks on Israel, and accuses South Africa\u2019s government of persecuting white Afrikaners. Trump has recently kicked out South Africa\u2019s ambassador in Washington and set up a refugee program for white Afrikaners. South African officials insist Trump is misrepresenting them, especially on the Afrikaner issue.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“Africans are already dying because of the U.S. aid cuts, and there\u2019s been an outcry, mainly among Democrats, over the scaling down of the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief \u2014 aka PEPFAR, the George W. Bush-era health initiative that has funded HIV\/AIDS treatments on the African continent.<\/p>\n
Still, people in Trump\u2019s orbit are not moved by such anecdotes or data, seeing them as parts of tired arguments that have prevented a needed, radical change in U.S. ties with Africa. One person pointed out that the \u201cE\u201d in PEPFAR stands for \u201cemergency.\u201d Yet the program is now more than two decades old.”<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/04\/17\/trump-us-africa-relationship-column-00293046<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[417,390,221,272,1722,355,314,226,170],"class_list":["post-17489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-africa","tag-diplomacy","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-aid","tag-foreign-policy","tag-international-relations","tag-trade","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17490,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17489\/revisions\/17490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}