Under Donald Trump’s presidency, US engagement with Africa is shrinking along a handful of key issues such as controversial deportation deals, punitive trade tariffs and strategic grab of critical minerals across the continent. The result is a continent caught in the crosswinds created by US exhortative policies. This phenomenon is creating various fault lines along Africa and eroding power of African Union.
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Under Donald Trump’s presidency, US engagement with Africa is shrinking along a handful of key issues such as controversial deportation deals, punitive trade tariffs and strategic grab of critical minerals across the continent. The result is a continent caught in the crosswinds created by US exhortative policies. While larger African democracies like Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa are fighting the crosswinds to protect their sovereignty, dignity and independent policies, smaller and weaker states are compelled to yield under surmounting pressure; giving away access to strategic ports and mines in exchange for short-term political reliefs and modest economic relief.
This phenomenon has been creating various fault lines along the African continent and eroding power of regional blocs like the African Union (AU), which once dominated negotiations with powerful states and institutions with Africa’s collective leverage.
Trump’s preference for bilateral, one-on-one deals is also dismantling multilateral frameworks, enabling Washington to cherry-pick nations based on their vulnerabilities. In the process, assertive democracies risk economic penalties and diplomatic fallout and compliant transactional states discover the long-term consequences of trading sovereignty for survival. The current scramble in Africa seems to be motivated by prospects of immediate gains and might prove detrimental in the long run. The repercussions of a myopic scramble will leave behind a more divided Africa at its new low of strategic vulnerability.
The current scramble in Africa seems to be motivated by prospects of immediate gains and might prove detrimental in the long run. The repercussions of a myopic scramble will leave behind a more divided Africa at its new low of strategic vulnerability
When Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar sat down for an interview with the local Channels TV in Abuja in July, he anticipated the question. Rumors had been circulating for weeks of a quiet US proposal for Nigeria to take in Venezuelan prisoners and asylum seekers facing deportation from the United States. The Donald Trump administration was under pressure at home to act decisively on immigration, and Africa, in Trump’s calculus, was part of the solution.
Tuggar did not mince words. “We have enough problems of our own,” he said. “We cannot accept Venezuelan deportees. We already have 230 million people.” With that, Africa’s most populous democracy had publicly rebuffed one of Washington’s most controversial overtures in years. It was not alone. Ghana’s president, John Mahama, broke with the usual diplomatic caution to openly criticize Trump’s treatment of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House meeting on May 21. Mahama condemned Trump’s remarks about “white genocide” in South Africa as “deeply insulting to the collective memory and dignity of Africans.”
“Trump’s refugee diplomacy is about outsourcing America’s immigration headaches to countries it sees as disposable or easily leveraged. These are not partnerships. They’re pressure tactics dressed up as diplomacy,” says Curtis Smith, a global affairs analyst in San Antonio, Texas. “It’s domestic politics, plain and simple.”
The refugee arrangements are opaque, but analysts say they are part of wider transactional packages including aid, security guarantees or preferential access to US programs. In Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is offering Washington privileged access to cobalt and other critical minerals essential to US supply chains. In the Horn of Africa, the self-declared republic of Somaliland is courting the Trump administration with access to strategic port facilities, including a Red Sea military base, and critical minerals in exchange for diplomatic recognition.
Likewise, “Trump’s 30% tariffs on South African goods are not about economics, they’re about politics,” says South African political economist Phumlani Majozi. “The Trump administration wants South Africa to make concessions on land laws and affirmative action policy, what it sees as the mistreatment of the Afrikaner minority. The Trump administration also wants Pretoria to shift away from its anti-Israel positions. There is no investment offer attractive enough to change Trump’s mind unless those things change,” adds Majozi.
These cases show how immigration deals, trade pressure and control over strategic resources are increasingly intertwined in Washington’s Africa policy. Deportation deals create openings for security cooperation; mineral access strengthens US supply chains; and both are tied to tariffs as leverage in bilateral negotiations. These intertwined tools of pressure have sparked strong and divergent reactions across Africa, dividing nations into two broad camps: defiant democracies determined to resist Washington’s demands, and transactional states willing to comply for strategic or economic gain.
Africa nations are divided into two broad camps: defiant democracies determined to resist Washington’s demands, and transactional states willing to comply for strategic or economic gain
The diplomatic chill between Ghana and US deepened after Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa publicly clashed with James E. Risch, the Republican chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Risch had accused Ghana of favoring Chinese creditors over American companies and taxpayers, following Ablakwa’s meetings in Washington on trade, immigration and looming US visa sanctions.
Ablakwa fired back on social media, calling the remarks “hypocritical” and reminding Washington of its unpaid “reparations” for the transatlantic slave trade. While reaffirming Ghana’s commitment to honor its debts, he insisted repayment would be on Accra’s terms, a sovereignty-first message that mirrors the assertive posture of other African democracies resisting Trump-era economic and political pressure.
In Pretoria, where the economy braced for the shock Trump’s 30% tariffs on South African goods, Ramaphosa’s government refused to bow. Instead, it has doubled down on its sovereign right to set domestic and foreign policy even as it scrambles behind the scenes to salvage a last-minute trade reprieve. In recent weeks, South Africa has confronted Eswatini over its decision to accept US-deported criminals, intensified its rhetoric against Israel’s war in Gaza, held firm on land reform policies affecting Afrikaner farmers and even signed a condolence book at the Iranian embassy. Washington has taken note. The Trump White House wanted concessions on race-based economic policies like Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and a softening of South Africa’s Middle East stance. It has got neither so far.
For Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa, saying no is about more than resisting Washington’s politically toxic deals. It is a declaration of leadership and a refusal to be dragged into America’s domestic culture wars. “They’re saying no, and they’re doing it with clarity and conviction,” says Smith. “These are countries with democratic credentials and strong civil societies. They’re signalling that they will not be managed through quiet coercion or economic intimidation. It’s about dignity as much as policy.”
In Mahama’s case, that meant standing beside Ramaphosa in a public diplomatic spat. In Ramaphosa’s, it has meant risking economic pain to preserve policy independence and, arguably, the credibility of his party, the African National Congress (ANC) at home. Domestic actors are also shaping these stances. In South Africa, trade unions have pressured the ANC to resist tariff-linked policy changes, warning of job losses and eroding sovereignty. The Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) cautioned against “alarmist” job-loss predictions and warned of serious risks to export-led sectors like automotive manufacturing, urging urgent government–US engagement to protect the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) benefits and bilateral trade. The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), by contrast, condemned the tariff as a “reckless proposal” fuelling a global trade war, citing retaliatory measures already taken by China and Canada.
In Ghana, opposition parties have seized on the government’s pushback against Washington to rally nationalist sentiments ahead. Nigerian civil society and opposition groups have been vocal in rejecting Trump’s migration deals, framing them as neo-colonial impositions.
On 5 July, South Sudan received eight deportees from the United States, only one of them South Sudanese, the rest from countries including Cuba, Mexico, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Juba framed the move as a gesture to “promote humanitarian cooperation, fulfil international responsibilities and maintain positive diplomatic relations with Washington.” The deportees, convicted of serious crimes including murder, sexual assault and robbery, had either completed or were nearing the end of their prison terms in the US.
On July 16, five US inmates, described by Washington as “uniquely barbaric” and rejected by their countries of origin, arrived in Eswatini after what the southern African kingdom called “months of robust high-level engagements” with the United States. In Rwanda, the government of Paul Kagame has recently confirmed it has agreed to accept up to 250 deportees from the US. For more vulnerable governments, Trump’s transactionalism has created opportunities and temptations to monetize strategic assets.
Trump’s transactionalism has created opportunities and temptations to monetize strategic assets
“DRC’s mineral overtures and Somaliland’s port proposal are calculated bids to remain in Washington’s strategic orbit,” says Federico Manfredi Firmian, a foreign policy fellow at Italy’s Institute for International Political Studies. “We are witnessing a new wave of ‘resource diplomacy’ in which states with fewer options on the global stage deploy strategic assets — from minerals to logistics infrastructure — to secure economic and political backing,” he notes. The precedent, Firmian adds, recalls the Cold War period, when African states courted superpowers with raw materials and military basing rights. But today’s scramble is less ideological and more opportunistic, shaped by whoever can offer the most enticing package and to whom.
The security dimension is also becoming more pronounced. US military basing arrangements are expanding from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, subtly reshaping regional power balances. Such agreements with smaller states can tilt military leverage in longstanding local rivalries, while binding these countries more closely to Washington’s strategic priorities, sometimes at the cost of regional alignments.
Beverley Ochieng, a security analyst specializing in the Sahel and global power competition in Africa, cautions that this transactional approach risks diluting scrutiny over governance, corruption, and human rights, leaving fragile states more susceptible to exploitation. Moreover, it could potentially entrench authoritarian tendencies under the guise of security cooperation.The result is a fragmented landscape in which some countries benefit in the short term, others face economic punishment, and the continent’s collective leverage is weakened. The AU’s muted response to the migration deals, and the absence of a united front on US tariffs has only deepened concerns about Africa’s ability to act in concert.
For small states like Eswatini or South Sudan, the calculation is brutally simple. “The power asymmetry is huge,” says Ovigwe Eguegu, a policy adviser at Development Reimagined. “For fragile governments dependent on US aid, migration deals are easier to swallow than risking diplomatic or political targeting by Washington.” He draws a parallel with the EU’s controversial migration arrangements with Tunisia, Morocco and Libya, where the EU funds local governments to block migrants from reaching Europe. “The trend of processing immigrants in third countries violates refugee and human rights obligations. Yet it’s becoming normalized.”
In Africa’s Great Lakes and Horn regions, these dynamics are intersecting with regional rivalries. Somalia is deepening ties with Türkiye, offering first refusal on offshore oil licences in exchange for expanded military support. Somaliland’s overtures to Trump’s circle are seen in Mogadishu as a direct threat to Somalia’s territorial integrity. “Under Trump, the US has a narrow focus: securing strategic minerals and metals, and countering China, Russia and the growing influence of BRICS,” Eguegu says. “African states that can make tangible offers in these regards can leapfrog their neighbors, even if they are in conflict with them.”
“The shift is being accelerated by the fading of the aid-driven model,” says Ochieng, “Countries are coming to Washington with pitches — mineral access, strategic ports — because they know the old aid paradigm is fading. In a more transactional world, they’re leveraging what they have.” She adds, “We saw it at Trump’s mini-Africa summit with the presidents of Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Gabon: every country came with a pitch. With Western aid retreating and rivals such as Türkiye, China, the UAE, Qatar and Russia expanding their footprint, the competition for geostrategic resources is intensifying.”
For decades, US engagement with Africa often came through regional bodies like ECOWAS or the African Union, or via European partners. Trump’s approach is different: bilateral deals, cut country by country. “In Europe, the EU negotiates as a bloc and extracts better terms,” says Eguegu. “In Africa, countries are being picked off one by one. That’s not partnership. That’s divide and extract.”
In Europe, the EU negotiates as a bloc and extracts better terms but in Africa, countries are being picked off one by one. That’s not partnership, it’s divide and extract
Growing fragmentation in Africa could drastically erode the continent’s bargaining strength. As countries pursue individual deals with Washington, the African Union risks losing relevance and the solidarity needed to negotiate from a position of strength. While such bilateralism might seem empowering, it often pits neighbors against each other for U.S. favor, leaving both democratic holdouts and compliant states vulnerable — the former to economic retaliation, the latter to the collapse of fragile promises.
Sustained, coordinated pressure from the African Union, the United Nations, and rival powers could push Washington toward multilateral frameworks and away from coercive bilateralism. This scenario would require unprecedented unity among African states — a historically elusive goal — but could restore a measure of balance in U.S.-Africa relations if achieved.
A sharp escalation in global competition over Africa’s minerals, ports, and migration routes could draw in more foreign military bases and transform strategic states into proxy arenas for rival powers. In this environment, short-term gains from selling access to strategic assets could lock governments into long-term security and economic arrangements, further constraining Africa’s ability to act with one voice.
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