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During the first week of December, the U.S. President convened the heads of state of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign a truce. He promised an end to decades of conflict in the turbulent eastern DRC, describing it as an opportunity for businesses in all three nations to generate significant profit.

Shortly after, however, a sharply contrasting approach to conflict emerged. It was declared that U.S. forces had conducted Christmas Day airstrikes in a region of Nigeria, targeting sites connected to the Islamic State (IS). On a online platform, the President warned, “I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”

A Clear Change of Direction

These divergent actions exemplifies the defining principle of the U.S. policy towards sub-Saharan Africa in this period: a stepping back from advocating for democracy and human rights in favor of a declared focus on commerce and ending wars—even as this aligns with the new aerial operations in Nigeria remains to be seen.

“We have moved past viewing Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner. ‘Trade, not aid,’ a slogan commonly used for years, is now truly our policy for Africa,” said a top U.S. state department official during a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March.

A presidential spokesperson reinforced this, saying 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.”

Policy Impacts and Inconsistencies

This pivot is significant, but experts caution it is premature to gauge its impact. The approach is influenced by the President’s unconventional diplomacy, which has included conflicts with long-standing U.S. partners and negative rhetoric towards Africans.

“The guiding idea 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. An analysis forecasts this could lead to millions of additional deaths globally by 2030, with a large number in Africa.
• Enacting visa restrictions on citizens from more than two dozen African countries and stopping most refugee admissions.
• Starting a global tariff campaign that has adversely affected 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.

Diplomatic Apathy and Tensions

Unlike his predecessors, the President avoided sub-Saharan Africa during his first term. His most infamous comment on African affairs was referring to nations on the continent with a crude epithet, which he later acknowledged using.

“The continent ranks 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 devoted only three paragraphs to Africa in a 29-page document.

A significant disagreement has erupted 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 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,” observed a veteran South African journalist based in Washington.

Transactional Diplomacy and Conditional Action

An analogous confrontation 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 evenly divided between Christians and Muslims and suffering from security crises affecting both groups.

Some Nigerian analysts noted that the stern rhetoric may have pushed the government into greater action 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 sent an envoy to try to forge a peace deal in Sudan’s civil war, so far 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 Competitors

Some analysts see the new U.S. approach as similar to that of other major powers like Russia and China, who have expanded their involvement in Africa in recent decades based on commercial 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,” said one foreign policy analyst.

In practice, the current policy 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 is not aimed at spreading the milk of human kindness, as it were, it is about a transactional posture towards Africa,” the observer stated.