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US election: Africa hoping for the better

Peter 5th Nov, 2024 Economy Agencies
US election: Africa hoping for the better

Republican candidate Donald Trump never visited the continent in his first term of office.


Voters in the United States today go to the polls to choose the 47th president of what is the world’s largest economic and military superpower, in an election that is not only tight in the US, but is also being closely watched around the world, including Africa.

The contest between Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Republican’s Donald Trump, a former president, is said to be very tight.

Africans have a reason to follow the election given the implications that the outcome would have on the continent.

  • The Voice of America reported early this week that international relations analysts say the outcome of next week’s election in the United States would have a profound influence on Washington’s relations with Africa, especially regarding trade, security and climate change initiatives.

In Trump’s first four-year term as president, his approach to Africa ranged from outrageous contempt to complete neglect. For example, he made no trips to the continent and showed little interest in its major issues such as climate change.

Trump did, however, launch the Prosper Africa initiative to support American investors and the growing middle class across Africa. However, if re-elected, he is expected to focus his policies on national interests in line with his ‘America First’ mantra.

  • While Harris toured three African countries in March 2023, she is said to be no more ambitious for the continent than her rival and is widely expected to continue with incumbent President Joe Biden's Africa policy.
US election: Africa hoping for the betterDemocratic candidate and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris has to follow in President Biden's footsteps.

Of course, even Biden has paid little attention to the continent, although he still plans to visit Angola in early December, just weeks before the end of his term in early January.

Some Africans are espousing a faint glimmer of hope that given that Harris has African roots, she would be more sympathetic to the continent.

However, in a recent report, the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies said the notion that a U.S. president with African roots would somehow fundamentally elevate the continent’s importance in Washington was quickly dispelled by a Barrack Obama administration that did not stray far from traditional orthodoxy toward Africa: braying about democracy and human rights while also pursuing national security interests that often ran contrary to the Americans’ stated values.

“Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris, who have ignored Africa over the course of their campaigns, have done anything to give Africans the impression that their administrations would be appreciably different from the past,” it said.

  • Whereas it argued that Harris would continue with Biden’s agenda, it also noted that the litmus test for a potential second Trump administration would be whether he can continue to articulate Africa’s inherent value to U.S. strategic interests or if he would revert back to the kinds of insensitive remarks that defined his first term in office.
  • On the US-Africa trade front, the next administration will first have to renew the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the Clinton-era trade platform that remains a cornerstone of U.S. Africa policy and which has barely a year to run.

But while it remains a defining program of the U.S. relationship with Africa, its promise remains unfulfilled and uneven. Only 32 of Africa’s 54 countries currently qualify for duty-free access to the U.S. market under AGOA, while more than 80% of AGOA benefits accrue to only five countries.

Expanding AGOA’s reach and impact should be central to its renewal, but this would require a break from recent precedent in which the Biden administration stripped more countries (seven) of their AGOA eligibility, including Uganda, than it restored (two) - the most suspensions by any president.

He accused the countries of non-compliance with the AGOA eligibility criteria. Launched in 2000, AGOA grants exports from qualifying countries duty-free access to the U.S. market. Discussions are already under way over whether to extend it and for how long.

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