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In early December, the U.S. President convened the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign a peace agreement. He promised an end to years of warfare in the turbulent eastern DRC, presenting it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations “to make a lot of money”.

Weeks later, however, a starkly different strategy for instability emerged. The administration announced that U.S. forces had executed Christmas Day airstrikes in north-west Nigeria, striking sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). On a online platform, 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.”

A Clear Shift in Policy

This dichotomy exemplifies the defining feature of the U.S. policy towards sub-Saharan Africa in this term: a moving away from championing democracy and human rights in favor of a avowed focus on trade and stopping hostilities—even as this squares with the new aerial operations in Nigeria remains to be seen.

“Our view has shifted from Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a mantra often repeated for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” stated a senior U.S. diplomat during a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

A presidential representative reinforced this, commenting 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.”

Strategic Results and Mixed Signals

This pivot is major, but experts caution it is premature to gauge its impact. The approach is influenced by the President’s unconventional diplomacy, which has included feuds with long-standing U.S. partners and insults directed at Africans.

“The core tenet is, if it’s in the immediate or future interest of the United States, as I see it, then I’m going to do it,” commented an analyst for Africa studies at a influential foreign policy council.

Notable policy moves have included:

• Dismantling the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. A study predicts this could lead to millions of excess fatalities globally by 2030, with a large number in Africa.
• Implementing visa restrictions on citizens from more than two dozen African countries and stopping most refugee admissions.
• Unleashing a global tariff campaign that has adversely affected African businesses dependent on U.S. markets, such as textile manufacturers in Lesotho.
• Allowing a longstanding U.S.-Africa trade preference act, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), to lapse without renewal.

Geopolitical Neglect and Strains

Differing from his recent predecessors, the President did not travel to sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His most infamous engagement with African affairs was referring to nations on the continent with a crude epithet, which he later confirmed using.

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

A major disagreement has erupted with South Africa, reportedly shaped 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 claim of a ‘white genocide’ happening in South Africa fits perfectly now with U.S. political culture and the idea that diversity is not welcome, it’s a threat,” commented a veteran South African journalist based in Washington.

Transactional Engagement and Selective Action

An analogous confrontation appeared 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 ran up against Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation split between Christians and Muslims and suffering from security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts noted that the harsh rhetoric may have pushed the government into more responsiveness 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 publicly expressed his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. His administration has mediated 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 was reportedly broken quickly, it “at least serves to introduce a degree of diplomacy and a channel outside the battlefield,” said one conflict expert.

An Echo of Rivals

Observers describe the new U.S. approach as reminiscent of that of other major powers like Russia and China, who have expanded their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on strategic interests.

“It represents a belated recognition of African agency, and to that extent, it represents, at least at the level of symbols, taking Africa very seriously,” observed one foreign policy analyst.

Realistically, the new approach likely means that “a state that doesn’t have anything to put on the table … is not on his radar.”

“The diplomacy that we are talking about isn't about spreading the milk of human kindness, as it were, it is about a business-oriented posture towards Africa,” the journalist concluded.