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During the first week of December, President Trump brought together the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a peace deal. His pledge was an end to decades of conflict in the volatile eastern DRC, describing it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations “to make a lot of money”.

Not long after, however, a sharply contrasting approach to conflict emerged. It was declared that U.S. forces had executed Christmas Day airstrikes in north-west Nigeria, striking sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). In a social media post, the President warned, 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 Shift in Policy

These divergent actions encapsulates the central feature of the U.S. approach to sub-Saharan Africa in this administration: a de-emphasis from advocating for democracy and human rights in favor of a declared focus on trade and ending wars—though how this fits with the nascent air campaign 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 often repeated for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” declared a top U.S. state department official during a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

An administration spokesperson reinforced this, noting the President “has treated Africa not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse partner. Under his leadership, American investment, 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 Inconsistencies

This change is major, but analysts note it is early to gauge its impact. The approach is complicated by the President’s direct manner, which has included feuds with long-standing U.S. partners and negative rhetoric towards 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 influential foreign policy council.

Key decisions have included:

• Dismantlement of the primary U.S. international development agency, USAID. A study forecasts this could lead to millions of preventable deaths globally by 2030, with a sizable share in Africa.
• Imposing visa restrictions on citizens from more than two dozen African countries and stopping most refugee admissions.
• Unleashing 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 lapse without renewal.

Geopolitical Apathy and Friction

In contrast to his predecessors, the President never visited 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.

“Africa clearly runs dead bottom in his list of priorities, not just for the President, 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 significant disagreement has developed 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 idea 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,” observed a veteran South African journalist based in Washington.

Transactional Engagement and Targeted Action

A similar confrontation 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 ran up against Nigeria’s complex reality as a nation split between Christians and Muslims and riven with security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts suggested that the forceful rhetoric may have prompted the government into greater action 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 been open 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.

Similar to Other Powers

Experts see the new U.S. approach as paralleling that of other major powers like Russia and China, who have increased their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on economic interests.

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

In practice, the new approach 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 transactional posture towards Africa,” the observer stated.