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At the start of December, President Trump convened the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign a truce. The commitment involved 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”.

Not long after, however, a sharply contrasting method for violence emerged. The administration announced that U.S. forces had carried out Christmas Day airstrikes in a region of Nigeria, hitting sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). On a online platform, 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 Defining Shift in Policy

This contrast highlights the defining feature of the U.S. approach to sub-Saharan Africa in this term: a moving away from advocating for democracy and human rights in favor of a declared focus on trade and ending wars—despite the fact that this fits with the emerging military strikes 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 slogan we’ve seen thrown around for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” declared a top U.S. state department official on a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

An administration spokesperson echoed this, saying the President “views 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.”

Policy Impacts and Mixed Signals

This shift is consequential, but experts caution it is premature to judge its results. The approach is complicated by the President’s unconventional diplomacy, which has included disputes with long-standing U.S. partners and insults directed at Africans.

“The organizing principle 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 a senior fellow for Africa studies at a major foreign policy council.

Notable policy moves have included:

• Dismantlement of the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. Research predicts this could lead to millions of preventable deaths globally by 2030, with a large number in Africa.
• Implementing visa restrictions on citizens from more than two dozen African countries and suspending most refugee admissions.
• Starting 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 expire without renewal.

International Disinterest and Friction

Differing from his predecessors, the President did not travel to sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His best-known foray into African affairs was referring to nations on the continent with a vulgar slur, which he later admitted using.

“Africa sits at 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 significant disagreement has developed 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 narrative 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.

Quid Pro Quo Relations and Targeted Involvement

A comparable 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 composed between Christians and Muslims and riven with security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts noted that the forceful rhetoric may have prompted the government into more responsiveness on security. After the Christmas airstrikes, Nigerian officials said they had consented to 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 forge a peace deal in Sudan’s civil war, so far without success. While the Congo deal appeared to have been broken quickly, it “helps to at least introduce a degree of diplomacy and a channel outside the battlefield,” noted one conflict expert.

A Resemblance to Competitors

Some analysts characterize the new U.S. approach as paralleling that of global rivals like Russia and China, who have increased their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on commercial 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,” said one foreign policy analyst.

Ultimately, the new approach likely means that “an African country that doesn’t have anything to put on the table … is not on his radar.”

“The diplomacy 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,” she added.