The joke about the US President’s policy towards Africa is that “Donald Trump could be getting his US-Africa policy right by simply not having one.” His view is actually more nuanced, in judging that no policy would likely be only “less bad” than explicitly “bad policy” that might result from greater White House interest in Africa.
There is no doubt, however, that analysts are left to speculate about how much personnel appointments might actually shape Africa decisions on the ground.But many analysts do not blame President Trump for not bothering to let his administration have an African policy. They say that the man knows next to nothing about Africa and probably has no idea where the entire continent can be located on the world map.
Although the notion of a unified “Africa” policy is largely a fiction under any administration, there is no doubt that the Trump administration is unusually bereft of authority and personnel at the State Department, which has the task of making sense of the policies of different departments and providing local knowledge to adapt policy to Africa-specific realities and changing circumstances.
In general, the incoherence of policy making under Trump, rapid staff turnover in his immediate entourage, lack of staffing in government agencies, and the ongoing investigations into his administration make even the immediate future of any foreign policy highly uncertain. It is also highly debatable whether continuity of policy guided by knowledgeable “adults” rather than zealots would actually produce “good policy.”
Beyond that, the consequences for Africa of U.S. global policy on climate change, counter-terrorism, health, corruption and illicit financial flow, human rights norms, and development goals, to name only a few such areas, will inevitably have fallout effects for Africa. These effects will surely be as great as, or greater than, the impact of policy decisions on Africa-specific issues. And the policy directions on domestic issues across the U.S. Government will set the context for each agency’s international engagement in Africa as well as in multilateral institutions. Thus it is quite possible to have no policy on “Africa” and disastrously worse policies than the “less bad” (continuity) policies of previous administrations.
