How Africa should negotiate with Trump

In a recent interview, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, how his government would balance continued ties with the US — including the negotiation of a critical minerals deal — with its deepening relationship with China. Tshisekedi responded that China’s influence is not so much “waxing” in Africa, as America’s influence is “waning.”

Tshisekedi is right. In 2000, the US was Africa’s largest trading partner; today, China’s total trade with Africa is more than four times larger than that of the US. Two US-Africa Leaders Summits have been held, in 2014 and 2022, and there is no date for a third, though Congress passed legislation late last year that would compel President Donald Trump to convene a summit this year and every two years thereafter.

Meanwhile, China is preparing to convene its 10th summit with African leaders, through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, in 2027. A Gallup poll published last year showed that, for the first time, China’s approval rating in Africa (58 percent) had surpassed that of the US (56 percent).

Speaking to Baier, Tshisekedi pointed out that his country would be “very happy” to see a renewed US commercial presence there. But Trump’s trade policies could have the opposite outcome. And persistent reports that the Trump administration plans to reduce the number of US embassies and consulates in Africa will only add to this decline in influence.

African Growth and Opportunity Act countries are scrambling to salvage their preferential access to the US market

Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman

For the last 25 years, the cornerstone of America’s commercial relationship with Africa has been the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a nonreciprocal trade agreement that allows more than 6,000 African products into the US without duties or quotas. Between 2001 and 2022, African members of the agreement exported more than $100 billion of goods to the US. The trade was always supposed to be one-way, but that does not mean it did not benefit US companies — such as Levi’s, Gap and Walmart — and consumers.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act was designed to help Africa transform its manufacturing base, thereby shifting the basis of its relationship with the US from aid to trade — a goal that one might expect the Trump administration, which has slashed foreign aid programs, to support. Participation was conditioned on African governments’ promotion of political pluralism, good governance and economic liberalization. And studies have shown that trade with the US increases value-added production, labor productivity and labor demand in Africa.

However, early last month, Trump introduced “reciprocal” tariffs on many African countries, with some of the African Growth and Opportunity Act’s strongest performers facing the highest rates: Lesotho (50 percent), Madagascar (47 percent) and Mauritius (40 percent). Meanwhile, the 17 African countries that are ineligible for the benefits of the act, mainly due to poor governance, were effectively rewarded with far lower tariffs.

Trump suspended most of these tariffs almost immediately, opening a 90-day window to strike new trade deals. And, to some extent, he is getting what he wanted, with African Growth and Opportunity Act countries scrambling to salvage their preferential access to the US market. Lesotho, for example, granted Trump ally Elon Musk’s Starlink a 10-year license to operate its satellite network in the country.

Nonetheless, Trump’s tariffs are unlikely to deliver quick wins for the US. Already, African trade ministers have agreed to fast-track policies that will promote trade within the continent, as well as to diversify exports to reduce their countries’ dependence on particular foreign markets. Add to that the shuttering of the US Agency for International Development and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the closure of Voice of America and the lapse of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and America’s footprint in Africa is shrinking fast.

But there is a way for Africa to leverage the US administration’s interests to the benefit of both sides. Trump’s top priority in Africa is securing access to critical minerals. This makes countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo — which boasts the world’s richest copper deposits and four of the world’s five largest cobalt mines — as well as Gabon, Zambia, South Africa and even Chad, strategically important. The US is already in talks over a minerals deal with Kinshasa and others.

African countries must do more to ensure that any critical minerals agreement provides a real boost to their economies

Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman

The only problem is that China is far ahead of the US on this front. Chinese state-owned companies and banks control 80 percent of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s cobalt production and as much as 90 percent of the world’s supply is refined in China, whereas the US produces less than 1 percent. This imbalance drove former US President Joe Biden’s administration to develop the Lobito Corridor initiative, aimed at expanding the 800-mile rail line that extends from the Angolan port of Lobito on Africa’s Atlantic coast through the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo to Zambia.

This initiative — for which the Trump administration has signaled its support — will upgrade African infrastructure by establishing partnerships between the US, African governments, African-led financing agencies such as the Africa Finance Corporation and the EU. But African countries must do more to ensure that any critical minerals agreement provides a real boost to their economies, especially by insisting that some value-add production occurs on the continent.

To complement access to Africa’s critical minerals, the US should also commit to processing them and adding value on the continent — for example, making cobalt into battery precursors before export. Since Chinese companies have shown no interest in doing this, such an exchange would position the US as a more valuable partner, thereby ensuring its long-term access to these vital resources. Given that Africa has all the minerals needed for production, spread across more than 10 countries in Central and Southern Africa, the development of local processing capabilities would also be consistent with the goals of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Africa and the US are both seeking to strengthen their manufacturing sectors, but this is not a zero-sum game. On the contrary, by agreeing to help strengthen Africa’s industrial capabilities, the US could gain greater access to resources that its own industry needs, reverse the decline of its commercial influence on the continent and contribute to the revival of wider, mutually beneficial trade. This could lead to more balanced current accounts, just as Trump desires.

• Vera Songwe, a former executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa and undersecretary-general at the UN, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Founder and Chair of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility, and Co-Chair of the Expert Review on Debt, Nature and Climate.
• Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton administration.

Copyright: Project Syndicate