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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. The commitment involved an end to years of warfare in the turbulent eastern DRC, describing it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations to generate significant profit.

Not long after, however, a starkly different strategy for instability emerged. Officials confirmed that U.S. forces had carried out Christmas Day airstrikes in a region of Nigeria, hitting sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). In a social media post, the President declared, I had cautioned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”

A Clear Strategic Pivot

These divergent actions exemplifies the central tenet of the U.S. engagement with sub-Saharan Africa in this term: a moving away from promoting democracy and human rights in favor of a stated focus on commerce and conflict resolution—despite the fact that this squares with the emerging aerial operations in Nigeria is yet unclear.

“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,” declared a senior U.S. state department official during a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

An administration representative stated this, noting the President “has treated Africa not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse partner. Under his leadership, American capital, technology, and diplomacy are helping African nations secure peace, build real energy independence, and turn their natural wealth into jobs and opportunity.”

Strategic Results and Mixed Signals

This shift is major, but experts caution it is premature to judge its results. The approach is intertwined with the President’s unconventional diplomacy, which has included disputes with long-standing U.S. partners and derogatory comments about 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,” explained a senior fellow for Africa studies at a prominent foreign policy council.

Key decisions have included:

• Shutting down the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. An analysis estimates this could lead to millions of additional deaths globally by 2030, with a sizable share in Africa.
• Imposing visa restrictions on citizens from numerous African countries and stopping most refugee admissions.
• Unleashing a global tariff campaign that has harmed 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.

International Apathy and Tensions

In contrast to his immediate predecessors, the President avoided sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His most notable engagement with African affairs was referring to nations on the continent with a derogatory term, which he later acknowledged using.

“Africa sits at dead bottom in his list of priorities, not just for him, but for the administration in general,” remarked 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 dispute has erupted with South Africa, apparently influenced 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 aligns beautifully now in 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 Targeted Action

An analogous standoff flared 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 collided with Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation composed 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 authorized 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 brokered in the Congo conflict and dispatched a diplomat to try to forge a peace deal in Sudan’s civil war, as yet without success. While the Congo deal seems to have been broken quickly, it “helps to at least introduce a degree of diplomacy and a channel outside the battlefield,” said one conflict expert.

An Echo of Other Powers

Some analysts describe the new U.S. approach as reminiscent of that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have deepened their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on economic 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,” observed one foreign policy analyst.

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

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