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In early December, the U.S. President brought together the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a truce. He promised an end to years of warfare in the volatile eastern DRC, framing it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations “to make a lot of money”.

Not long after, however, a starkly different strategy for instability emerged. The administration announced that U.S. forces had carried out Christmas Day airstrikes in northwestern Nigeria, hitting sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). Via a statement posted online, 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 Defining Change of Direction

This contrast encapsulates the defining principle of the U.S. policy towards sub-Saharan Africa in this period: a moving away from advocating for democracy and human rights in favor of a avowed focus on trade and stopping hostilities—though how this aligns with the new aerial operations in Nigeria is an open question.

“We have moved past viewing Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a mantra we’ve seen thrown around for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” declared a senior U.S. state department official in a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

A White House representative echoed this, noting the President “approaches Africa not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse partner. Under his leadership, American investment, 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 Contradictions

This change is consequential, but experts caution it is too soon to gauge its impact. The approach is influenced by the President’s direct manner, which has included feuds with long-standing U.S. partners and negative rhetoric towards Africans.

“The guiding idea 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 major foreign policy council.

Key decisions have included:

• Dismantlement of the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. Research forecasts this could lead to millions of preventable deaths globally by 2030, with a large number in Africa.
• Enacting visa restrictions on citizens from numerous African countries and halting most refugee admissions.
• Implementing a global tariff campaign that has hurt 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 expire without renewal.

Geopolitical Apathy and Tensions

In contrast to his immediate predecessors, the President never visited sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His best-known engagement with African affairs was dubbing nations on the continent with a crude epithet, 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 feud 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 fits perfectly 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 Conditional Action

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 ran up against Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation split between Christians and Muslims and plagued by security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts suggested that the forceful rhetoric may have spurred the government into increased efforts on security. After the Christmas airstrikes, Nigerian officials said they had authorized the U.S. intervention and might collaborate on further actions.

Trump 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 end the fighting 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.

Similar to Rivals

Some analysts describe the new U.S. approach as similar to that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have deepened their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on strategic 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.

Realistically, the current policy likely means that “a nation 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 observer stated.