The United States government is disengaging from those things that do not align with President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy, including aggressive moves to dismantle globalization by using the threat of trade tariffs to bend various nations to Trump’s will.
This is gunboat diplomacy with a twist. As far as Trump is concerned, the United States, as Mr. Nice Guy, has left the stage. His tariff blitz is re-jigging global supply chains as leading trading nations hark back to the era of protected markets that were characterised by relatively high consumer prices.
During 2024, Africa pocketed less than five percent of the total $30 trillion in global traded merchandise. However, going forward, Africans can lucratively exploit the Trump upheaval and turn it into a welcome opportunity by accelerating the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Some of the most influential people, who currently have Trump’s ear, are owners of major technology companies. Basic components of the hardware that drive their businesses rely on critical inputs found in Africa. By leveraging the continent’s natural resources in a manner that doesn’t leave us empty-handed, America First doesn’t have to mean Africa last. The minerals in much demand include cobalt, copper, graphite, iron ore, manganese, lithium, and nickel.
Speaking recently in Cairo, Prof. Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Afreximbank, said, “Globalisation, as we know it, is regrettably under life support. The African Continental Free Trade Area is the instrument that offers Africa the opportunity to look inwards within itself, as a source of growth and development.”
He was addressing a gathering of the inaugural FOCUS Africa Trade and Investment Forum, intended to strengthen economic integration in Africa. Participants discussed investment challenges and how to unlock high-impact opportunities across multiple sectors, including agribusiness, technology, infrastructure, logistics, energy, manufacturing, mining, tourism, and the blue economy.
Prof Oramah said, “If we achieve a truly integrated market with a combined GDP of about $3 trillion, a diverse ecosystem and variety of natural resources, we can create our internal globalisation and be in a position to integrate the African Diaspora and engage the rest of the world more meaningfully.”
Dubbed the ‘mean’ agenda by some and ‘strategically pragmatic’ by its promoters, ‘America First’ puts forward the argument that the US should no longer shoulder the burdens of the world or have its position as the largest market flooded by items not made in America. Hence the scramble by major US companies, including Apple, to reshore manufacturing from mainly Asian low-cost countries.
Diehard and indignant supporters of Trump also find it insulting that increasingly, large swathes of the global community do not respect US values, yet are recipients of its generosity and even go out of their way to hurt American interests.
USAID, a previously powerful symbol of American soft diplomacy, is being phased out. And as fate would have it, during an interlude when humanitarian needs have risen to the highest levels in the Middle East and Africa.
In 2024, of the $12 billion the agency spent across Africa for health, education, energy solutions, small business development, and other socio-economic programs, the agency provided $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance.
Outgoing President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said, “The recent dismantling of the official development aid agency in the US, and similar anti-aid measures in other parts of Europe, means that the old development models that Africa has always relied on will no longer work.”
“The era of aid or free money is gone. African countries must now learn to develop via investment discipline. Countries can no longer rely on aid for growth or count it as part of government revenue, as has been the case for decades,” Dr. Adesina said.
President Yoweri Museveni told delegates to the annual Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD) meeting in Kampala last week, “The solutions are with us. Over-reliance on foreign support could undermine long-term progress.”
Known as a passionate believer of pan-Africanism, which partly accounts for Uganda’s liberal market economy, a couple of years ago Museveni said, “How are the 1.4 billion Africans going to be prosperous? You can be prosperous through the production of goods or services, but if you produce goods or services, who will then buy what you produce? If you produce goods or services and you do not have enough buyers, you can’t expand. The first logic of integration is to guarantee our prosperity through integrating markets.”
Intra-African trade is edging up, but a host of political, institutional, cultural, and infrastructural barriers are preventing faster growth. The total value reached $208 billion in 2024, compared to $192 billion the previous year. In comparison, the figure is close to $4 trillion for the 10-member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Dr Rania Al-Mashat, the Egyptian Minister of Planning, Economic Development, and International Cooperation, said at the FOCUS gathering, “AfCFTA presents unprecedented opportunities. However, intra-African trade currently accounts for only 15% of total African trade. This is where our efforts must intensify.”
But you cannot do business in a war zone. The African continent is riddled with the kind of violent turmoil that dampens investment and growth, squandering the huge latent talents of its youth bulge.
Recently, the Pan-African Manufacturers Association (PAMA) highlighted persistent insecurity as a major threat to the growth of Africa’s manufacturing sector. PAMA says insecurity is impacting their sector through issues like infrastructure damage, supply chain disruptions, and labour displacement. PAMA also points to other challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, high trade costs, and inefficient border processes, which hinder manufacturing growth.
Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian dollar multi-billionaire entrepreneur, doesn’t mince his words. “What makes sense is to have the free trade agreement work. The trade between Africans is only about 16%, which is too low. We have to make sure that all the regional markets have to remove these visa requirements of visas. We have to allow free movement of people, free movement of goods and services, and the AfCFTA will work. Without that, it is almost impossible,” he said.
African heads of state enjoyed the pomp of signing onto AfCFTA, but they largely underestimate how political instability continues to create uncertainty, ultimately making it much harder for businesses to grow and thrive. This deepens the negative perceptions about Africa.
Trump has never been overly interested in Africa, to the extent that during his first term as president, when the subject came up, he used an expletive. However, the conservative-right wing authors of Project 2025, a document from which Trump derives much of his policies, think differently.
‘Africa’s importance to US foreign policy and strategic interests is rising and will only continue to grow. Its explosive population growth, large reserves of industry-dependent minerals, proximity to key maritime shipping routes, and its collective diplomatic power ensure the continent’s global importance. Yet as Africa’s strategic significance has grown, the United States’ relative influence there has declined,’ the document reads in part.
It states: ‘Terrorist activity on the continent has increased, while America’s competitors are making significant gains for their national interests. Chinese companies dominate the African supply chain for certain minerals critical to emerging technologies. The new Administration can correct this strategic failing of existing policy by prioritizing Africa and by undertaking fundamental changes in how the United States works with African nations. While the United States should always be willing to offer emergency and humanitarian relief, both US and African long-term interests are better served by a free market-based, private growth-focused strategy to Africa’s economic challenges.’
African leaders have been talking about economic integration for almost half a century, specifically since the signing of the Lagos Plan of Action in 1980. The fact that we continue to fumble with implementation today is perhaps because of ignoring a key fundamental of free enterprise–the security of life and property, and all that boils down to the calibre of African leadership.
