A little bit more ‘hating’ from Trump II could just do Africa a lot of good

Trump’s African support came from forces that stood on opposite sides. For example, when in 2018 he controversially referred to African countries, Haiti and El Salvador as "sh*thole", some in the democracy movements and opposition in several countries supported him because he was exposing the incompetence and corruption of cruel leaders who had run their nations down.

However, the same corrupt leaders also loved Trump because he didn’t lecture them about democracy, human rights, and corruption – or sanction them for things like killing peaceful protestors in their hundreds and looting their treasuries.

In the middle were those whose spirits, having been broken by decades of suffering, welcomed the neglect because they believed it could birth an African renewal. They argue that Western aid subsidises African corruption and undermines democracy.

Donors pay for health and education, so African leaders and officials steal the money from local taxes they would have used to pay for those services.

Secondly, because the money that keeps many critical services running in several African countries comes from donors, the leaders can afford to treat their people badly because they don’t need them to be happy, willing taxpayers, who are crucial for their survival.

Trump II provides an opportunity to close some of this unfinished business, and the results could be far-reaching.

Among the first big African matters Trump will have to deal with is the extension or termination of the Africa-US African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) which is set to expire in September 2025.

Agoa provides duty- and quota-free access to the US market for a range of African goods, but it has also been brandished as a blunt diplomatic and economic weapon. In 2023 Uganda, the leading campaigner for the creation of Agoa in 2000, was kicked out after it passed an extreme anti-homosexuality law.

African exports to the US under Agoa neared $9.7 billion in 2023, reflecting strong growth from $6.8 billion in 2021. This trade has largely focused on oil, textiles, vehicles (from South Africa and Morocco), and agricultural products.

Some East African countries have done well out of it. According to Agoa data, Kenya's apparel sales to the US under the programme grew from $55 million in 2001 to $603 million in 2022. Ethiopia’s exports to the US increased from $29 million to $525 million in 2020, 45.3 percent of it under Agoa. It was suspended from Agoa in January over its excesses in the Tigray war.

In 2018, Trump suspended duty-free treatment for all apparel products from Rwanda, after Kigali banned the import of second-hand clothes (mitumba). It was the retaliation Rwanda needed. Its textile and garment sector grew 83 per cent in value between the 2018 suspension and 2020. Trump will not have to bother if, as many expect, he lets Agoa die in September.

Like the Rwanda textile industry, some Pan-African optimists think that with Agoa gone, a desperate Africa will finally scramble to make its six-year-old, but feeble, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) work.

The US provides roughly $8 billion–$10 billion annually in foreign aid to Africa. This aid mainly focuses on health initiatives, such as Pepfar (the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) and anti-malaria programmes; school feeding programmes; education; humanitarian assistance; and economic development.

Some countries’ public health and education sectors would collapse without US funding. If Trump takes away the chequebook, in less than two years, combined with the debt stress several of these countries face, they would be in crisis.

Some think this is a good thing. That people who find themselves in peril, and have nothing to lose, will eventually rise, fight corrupt regimes, take back their power, and build free, democratic, transparent governments.

East Africa should know. In Uganda, opposition leader Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi), perhaps the biggest thorn in the side of four-decades-ruling President Yoweri Museveni, was the first African product of the Trump era.

The singer, actor and businessman came into politics in a dramatic by-election in July 2017, on the wave of discontent about economic conditions and repression in Uganda. He challenged Museveni in what, for him, was a painful and traumatic election in January 2021. He lost (or was robbed as he sees it), but he rattled the cage.

In August 2017, Kenya went for presidential and legislative elections, with similar economic and politics at play. Uhuru Kenyatta won re-election, but it was challenged by main rival Raila Oginga. In an Africa first and shocker, the Kenya Supreme Court nullified the election and called for a fresh vote.

It can be argued that Washington, reputed for meddling heavily in regional issues, had a hands-off Africa policy under Trump I that enabled a geopolitical ecosystem in which the Kenya Supreme Court could swing the axe in that way.

It would be another strange chapter in the Trump book if his foreign policy succeeded in Africa because he did nothing.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. X(Twitter)@cobbo3