What’s at Stake for Africa in the U.S. Elections?

Africa has not featured much in foreign-policy discussions leading up to the U.S. presidential elections, but the outcome will have a significant impact on African countries and beyond. Africa has the world’s fastest-growing populations and economies, as well as the critical mineral resources needed for the world’s green energy transition.

Historically, successive U.S. governments have neglected the continent, seeing it as a security problem to be managed, which created a vacuum of influence filled by China and Persian Gulf nations. Policies drafted to counter rivals have led to criticism that the U.S. relationship with Africa is a reactive one.

In more than 20 African nations, security has worsened compared to a decade ago, according to a report by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. A rollback of democracy and a growing trend of insurgencies have brought trade opportunities for Russia, Turkey, and even Hungary, all promising to bring back peace in exchange for resources.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s canceled trip to Angola this month would have marked his first visit to Africa while in office. Biden has said that he will visit Angola in December, during his final months as president. But his choice of Angola—a state that has restricted protests, free speech, and media freedom—highlights the  inconsistent U.S. approach to democracy promotion in Africa. As former U.S. Ambassador to Botswana Michelle Gavin wrote recently, a “visit from President Biden will be interpreted as an embrace of Angola’s unpopular government.”

Vice President Kamala Harris—the Democratic nominee—has visited the continent, and she chose democracies. More than 8,000 young Ghanaians gathered to hear Harris speak in Accra during a three-nation African tour that also included Tanzania and Zambia. In December 2022, the U.S. government signed a memorandum of understanding to support the African Continental Free Trade Area, and in March, Washington launched an initiative to support Africa’s creative industry amid a global surge in popularity for contemporary African pop music. Harris is expected to largely continue Biden’s African policy as defined in the U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, launched in 2022.

Security analysts suggest that a win for former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, could prioritize aggressive military solutions over humanitarian assistance. But as Islamist insurgencies by groups linked to al Qaeda ramp up in the Sahel, the threat to U.S. national security could lead a Harris administration to adopt the same policies.

Military operations in Africa expanded under former U.S. President Barack Obama despite concerns from African civic groups. “Only a small fraction of U.S. government investment on the continent focuses on cultivating good governance,” U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs wrote in Foreign Policy in 2022. “The worst thing the United States could do is be the chief ally, arms dealer, and enabler of corrupt and abusive regimes.”

Both Harris and Trump would continue Washington’s policies that seek to compete with Beijing on trade in Africa but face an uphill battle in wrangling lost influence back from the Middle East, Turkey, and China.

During his first term, Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region in exchange for Rabat normalizing relations with Israel. Trump could strengthen cooperation further with Mauritania and Morocco on areas of defense and anti-immigration policies in the Sahel, particularly in the wake of a costly U.S. withdrawal from Niger earlier this year.

Regardless of who wins, analysts believe the battle against China for critical minerals in Africa will be the primary driver of both parties’ policies toward Africa.

Global trade wars. There is a strong belief that both Harris and Trump would ratchet up protectionist policies toward China that would hurt African economies. This year, the Biden administration spearheaded the Lobito Corridor, a railway project aimed at rivaling Chinese dominance of critical minerals in Africa.

But critics say the project comes far too late to beat Beijing and is not targeted at African needs, with some arguing that it instead continues resource extraction that has historically not served Africa well. Since its enactment more than two decades ago, exports through the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which expires at the end of 2025, have largely benefited oil producers.

Non-fossil fuel benefactors have been limited to just five countries: South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Madagascar. Ethiopia significantly grew its textile industry through AGOA but was removed from the agreement—along with seven other nations—under Biden.

In 2018, Trump removed Rwanda after it banned secondhand apparel from the United States to protect its local textiles industry. Trump established the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the Prosper Africa initiative to increase trade and investment, but many of those investments have been aimed at health care access.

African governments urgently need funding for investment projects that will allow them to grow industries exporting finished goods rather than raw materials, but they have to rely on far more expensive capital. The economies of African nations south of the Sahara will decline up to 4 percent this year due to funding shortages, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Immigration. Africa’s highly skilled graduates—doctors, nurses, lawyers, and engineers—in Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe are moving by the thousands to the United States and Europe, causing a catastrophic brain drain.

On the opposite side, Kenyan President William Ruto and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi want to export talent to grow their economies via remittances and foreign currency reserves. At least 4,000 Kenyan medical graduates are unemployed. For both nations, a second presidency for Trump—who has pledged mass detention camps and deportations—would obstruct an economic goal of exporting workers to ease mass unemployment.

Joblessness, violent political unrest, climate change, and government failures to provide basic services such as electricity and garbage collection are key drivers of Africans voting with their feet and emigrating—issues that intersect with U.S. policies on security, energy, and democracy promotion around the continent.

During his presidency, Trump issued an immigration ban on six African nations, including Nigeria, at the time the continent’s biggest economy. Nigerians would never “go back to their huts” once they were allowed in, Trump allegedly told U.S. senators. That ban was swiftly reversed by Biden when he took office. Harris supports H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, while Trump limited the program.

Emissions reductions. Many African leaders say they want to expand grid electricity to rural communities by ramping up carbon extraction. The Abuja-based Africa Energy Bank, launched this year, pools African nations’ finances on local fossil fuel electricity projects because the United States, Europe, and China have stopped funding them. It’s backed by Middle Eastern investors.

More than 40 percent of Africans live without grid electricity. Project 2025, a prospective policy document published by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank with involvement from at least 140 former officials in Trump’s administration, opposes a United Nations-led climate reparations fund advocated by African leaders. It’s worth noting that Trump has distanced himself from the blueprint.

Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, which Biden rejoined. It’s expected that Harris would return the country to the agreement. Last March, the Biden administration announced more than $7 billion in private sector finance for climate impact and clean energy projects across Africa, while Trump has previously disparaged clean energy.

When it comes to fossil fuels, a Trump presidency would appeal to African leaders and bolster influence against China, whereas the Harris administration’s policies tend to align more with that of African civil society groups.

Threatening public health gains. In both 2018 and 2020, the Trump administration threatened to cut PEPFAR, initially launched as a Republican Party initiative, and the U.S. government’s most successful global health program.

PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, was set up two decades ago by the George W. Bush administration to address the HIV epidemic and has funded antiretroviral treatment for more than 20 million people globally. Republican complaints about PEPFAR focus on the Biden administration’s 2021 decision to end the so-called Mexico City policy, also known by critics as the “global gag rule” imposed by Trump and past Republican administrations. Republicans contend that PEPFAR programs fund abortion overseas.

Yet, more than 350 African church leaders from across the continent signed a letter last September urging the renewal of PEPFAR. There’s no guarantee that a Harris administration would fully protect PEPFAR either, since the Obama administration also cut funding to it.

Some fear that a Trump administration would be a boon for African leaders seeking to restrict women’s reproductive rights given the rollback of abortion rights in the United States. American right-wing activists have stepped up campaigns across African nations promoting anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ ideologies.

A group of 17 right-wing U.S. groups increased their spending by 50 percent between 2019 and 2022, funding $16.5 million worth of campaigns against sexual and reproductive rights in Africa, according to a new report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change.

As Caleb Okereke wrote last March, “an export of a made-in-the-USA movement and ideology” is “polarizing African countries and harming and endangering LGBTQ+ people.” Trump has pledged to rescind federal policies against anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

Defusing tensions in the Horn of Africa. A potentially dangerous alliance against Ethiopia was forged earlier this month between Egypt, Eritrea, and Somalia over a port access deal in the breakaway region of Somaliland.

Former diplomats from the Trump administration —such as Tibor Nagy and J. Peter Pham—support a U.S. recognition of Somaliland statehood that threatens to inflame tensions and break a decadeslong White House position on maintaining the integrity of Somalia. The African Union argues that it would give a signal to various separatist movements across the continent unhappy with colonial-era borders, including secessionists in Nigeria and Senegal.

The U.S. plays an important international role in the Horn of Africa, and new diplomacy is urgently needed to regain influence amid the war in Sudan and internal divisions within Ethiopia. Importantly, outside actors such as Russia and the Gulf states are fueling proxy wars in these regions in pursuit of economic interests.