The director of the Africa Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) – a Washington-based think tank that analyses US relations with the continent – Myemba Phezo Dizolele, argues that despite Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda, Africa is important and the United States cannot afford to ignore the continent.
The analyst, quoted by the newspaper Expansão, begins by explaining that Donald Trump didn’t have any African political leaders at his inauguration, a fact that in itself reveals nothing, given that Trump preferred to surround himself with businessmen, especially ‘the tech oligarchs’, as Joe Biden characterised them, rather than political leaders. The continent was absent from the speeches and executive orders he signed, first at the Capital One Arena, where the inauguration took place, and then in the Oval Office of the White House.
The CSIS director points out that the only significant African presence at the inauguration was limited to a few businessmen and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa but has American nationality. It was to the businessman that the US President entrusted the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in order to reduce costs in the Administration. The appointment sparked several complaints minutes after the inauguration.
The complaint by the National Security Counselors, a public interest law firm, invokes the violation of a 1972 law, which establishes that for the DOGE to be a federal advisory committee, it must comply with ‘rules of transparency, contracting and other practices’. Requirements that the Department of Government Efficiency did not fulfil, in addition to the obvious promiscuity between the public interest and Elon Musk’s business. The promoters of the lawsuit claim that the White House should be prevented from implementing any recommendation given by the department and are asking for all members to be banned from carrying out any official actions until they comply with the advisory committees law.
The DOGE, which already operates out of Musk’s SpaceX offices in Washington, will have an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building within the White House complex.
Among the executive orders signed by Donald Trump, after revoking 78 of those of his predecessor, Joe Biden, the ones that could have an immediate impact on the African continent are the suspension of US foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review to assess whether these programmes are aligned with the political objectives of his administration, and the decree of mass expulsions of immigrants, a measure that is feared by countries with a strong diaspora in the US, such as Nigeria.
The threat of tariffs could have repercussions in countries like South Africa, with which the US has significant trade, but it shouldn’t impact many African economies. The decision to leave the World Health Organisation will delay efforts to eradicate diseases with a strong incidence on the continent, such as smallpox and polio, as WHO spokesman Tark Jasarevic stressed.
