Africa is the world’s largest emerging market and it’s projected to have 1.52 billion consumers by 2025. This big market implies business opportunities for many developed economies and with the U.S. being the hegemony of the current world order, it should use its position and influence on the African continent to promote its economic, political and military interests in Africa because it has invested a lot of resources in the region. However, in 2009, China replaced the United States as Africa’s largest trading partner and its rules of engagement have been called predatory by U.S. diplomats. Beijing’s engagements on the continent have been found to strain public debt, employ Chinese labour and exploit the local labour.
There has been concern that the billions of U.S. tax payers’ money spent on the continent have not stopped terrorism, violence or hindered other powers from expanding their own power and influence. This explains why the Trump administration has chosen a more transactional approach as opposed to foreign assistance. But this is not a solution given the situation in the current international political economy. The growing economic and political influence of China and Russia is not likely to lead to stable and transparent governance, economic growth and development across the region. The challenges facing many African countries continue to be more complex and many governments are becoming more fragile. Yet when Africa is unstable, this affects the U.S’s economic, political and national security interests in the region. The U.S. can still use its position to protect the continent from the ‘predators’.
Trump administration’s Prosper Africa program which was first introduced in December 2018 by the then National Security Adviser John Bolton aims to promote prosperity, security and stability in U.S.-Africa relations with a focus on trade and investment to achieve the three objectives. In support of the same, Washington has vowed to no longer fund corrupt autocrats, yet Russia and China are willing to provide loans and weaponry to morally bankrupt African leaders as long as they serve their strategic interests in the region. Therefore, Trump’s administration is faced with the challenge of developing policy options to achieve the objectives it set out amidst Beijing and Kremlin’s growing financial and political influence in the region.
Part of Beijing’s foreign policy strategy has been extending large loans with unclear terms to African governments, giving the super power contender leverage over national governments. This has resulted into negative reciprocity and African countries like Zambia and Djibouti have fallen victims to China’s opaque loans and have lost state owned enterprises to Chinese companies. Russia on the other hand has been accused of selling arms and energy in exchange for votes at the UN General Assembly given the fact that Africa represents a quarter of votes in the UN General Assembly. As the hegemony, U.S. can only win back the support of
The rapid expansion of the financial and political influence of China and recently, Russia is a deliberate move to gain a competitive advantage over the hegemonic influence of the United States on the continent. Yet both Russia and China show little regard for international law standards like the rule of law, accountability and transparency in governance. Africa continues to be challenged by the lack of these values which the US has been promoting since it attained super power status in 1945. There U.S. has got to counter this growing influence from the two communist powers on the continent.
The U.S still needs control over the continent, for strategic and geopolitical reasons. The current foreign policy measures employed by Kremlin and Beijing pose threats to the United States’ position in the region. The U.S has got to counter the dual’s growing influence as a balance of power/stability mechanism. It is still a debate on whether the U.S. has lost its ability and will to manage the international system. Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ rhetoric points to a decline in U.S.’s position in global affairs but is the administration willing to let the African continent be controlled by the counter-hegemonic states of Russia and China? What effect would this have on her influence in other parts of the world? Would the U.S. just sit back and watch, as the international standards of democracy, human rights and free speech are suppressed and replaced by communist values?
Through its Foreign policy, the U.S. has always defended democracy, human rights and free speech on the African continent. Wilson Woodrow referred to this global responsibility as, “America fighting for the things it carries nearest to its heart.” Many African countries remain pretenders at democracy and majority of the African people have no voice in their own governments. This is not the moment for the U.S. to stop this fight because the situation is likely to worsen if Russia and China continue to extend their influence without restrain from the West headed by the U.S.
The Trump administration cannot continue to pursue an isolationist policy, it does not serve the U.S. national interests as a hegemony, especially at a time when its major rivals are out to exert influence in places that have been under its influence. The United States has got to continue guarding the principles of democracy, human rights and free speech on the African continent from the looming threat of communism. Africa remains a strategic region for the U.S. and it cannot afford to let it fall into Kremlin and Beijing’s grip. At the moment it’s hard to predict whether President Trump will still occupy the Oval Office after the 2020 general elections, but whoever will be the President will need a foreign policy that prioritises Africa in order to reverse the United States’ declining influence on the continent in a liberalised global political economy that has been its playground since the end of the second world war.
Patrica Namakula,
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Head of Research and Communications, Centre for Multilateral Affairs
