Trump to host five African leaders next week to discuss ‘commercial opportunities'
Trump will host leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal for a discussion and lunch at the White House on July 9, the official said.
'President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners,' the official said, referring to the reasons why the meeting was arranged.
Africa Intelligence and Semafor reported earlier that the Trump administration would hold a summit for the five countries in Washington from July 9-11.
The Trump administration has axed swaths of U.S. foreign aid for Africa as part of a plan to curb spending it considers wasteful and not aligned with Trump's 'America First' policies. It says it wants to focus on trade and investment and to drive mutual prosperity.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was abandoning what he called a charity-based foreign aid model and will favor those nations that demonstrate 'both the ability and willingness to help themselves.'
U.S. envoys in Africa will be rated on commercial deals struck, African Affairs senior bureau official Troy Fitrel said in May, describing it as the new strategy for support on the continent.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
African Union's dependence on donor funding is a legacy of rampant colonial plunder
Mo Ibrahim, the prominent Sudanese-British billionaire, ignited a potent debate at his annual governance weekend in Marrakesh, Morocco, an unofficial gathering of African luminaries. Ibrahim criticised the African Union's (AU's) 70% dependence on external financing during his conversation with the former AU commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat: 'You call them colonisers, but when they give us money, they're partners… This is a farce; either you're serious, or you forget it.' He was ostensibly championing African sovereignty. However, this perspective, while nominally highlighting a crucial contradiction, suffers from a fundamental conceptual flaw in its assessment of such financial assistance. These contributions, regardless of their framing as development partnerships, are not benevolent donations from the West; they are, in essence, a protracted form of restitution for centuries of systemic exploitation. The historical timeline of Africa's subjugation dates back to 1415, with Portugal's occupation of Ceuta, Morocco, initiating a predatory colonial expansion that culminated in the infamous 'Scramble for Africa' in the 19th century. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 formalised the partition of the continent among European powers, heedless of existing cultural, ethnic, or social boundaries. This exploitation, which extended well into the latter half of the 20th century, left indelible scars and profound economic dislocations that continue to plague the continent. Slave trade The transatlantic slave trade, a particularly brutal manifestation of Western colonialism from the 15th to 19th centuries, forcibly transported more than 12.5 million Africans to the Americas between 1501 and 1866. This inhumane trade was not merely economic exploitation; it was underpinned by an intellectual scaffolding designed to rationalise the subjugation of black people as inherently inferior, solidifying the notion of white racial supremacy. This deliberate construction of racial hierarchy created a cohesive ideological framework that justified domination and exclusion based on race, becoming an integral part of the modern global system, permeating international relations, economics, politics and culture, with repercussions still felt today. These were not isolated historical events but systematic processes that birthed modern racism as an ideology and institutional practice. The colonial project relied on these conceptions not only to legitimise human trafficking, but also to solidify a global structure in which Africa occupied a subordinate position. The scale of this historical plunder is staggering. One conservative estimate suggests that the British Empire alone had extracted more than £35-trillion (in current terms) from its various colonies across the world, alongside an abundance of cheap or completely unpaid labour and vast quantities of commodities such as rubber, sugar and oil. Continuing extractive dynamic The outflow of wealth from Africa persists even after the end of direct colonial rule. A modern study revealed that between 1970 and 2010, $814-billion (in 2010 US dollars) flowed out of sub-Saharan Africa through capital flight, illicit financial flows, resource mispricing, and debt servicing. This figure significantly surpasses both official development aid and foreign direct investment to the region, underscoring a continuing extractive dynamic. Beyond direct financial losses, colonialism inflicted immense opportunity costs, impeding Africa's natural development. While Europe's net foreign assets reached 70% of its GDP by 1914, Africa suffered a lost annual growth rate of 0.9% to 1.3% during the colonial era. This is in addition to the destruction of indigenous economic systems, land ownership structures, impeding industrial development, enforcing monoculture economies, fragmentation of trade zones by creating artificial political and economic boundaries, and the suppression of independent scientific, economic and intellectual advancement. Furthermore, the pattern of European colonial exploitation versus developmental investment was not uniform. Britain, the largest colonial power, allocated a mere 16.9% of its capital exports to all its colonies (excluding Canada, Australia and New Zealand), which is less than the 20.5% directed to the United States alone. Any claim about a beneficial contribution of colonial powers in the development of their African colonies is, at best, a fallacy. Even anthropometric studies indicate a decline in the height of African people by at least 1.1cm during colonisation, signalling worsened health and nutrition due to land grabbing, forced labour and disease, reflecting a decline in the biological standard of living with long-term economic implications. Furthermore, European colonialism arrested the natural evolution of African social and political systems. African societies were denied the gradual development necessary for the maturity of stable governing institutions and the internal construction of political and social legitimacy. Colonial powers deliberately dismantled traditional structures and local governance systems, replacing them with authoritarian, externally imposed authorities serving colonial interests. Political instability This severed the organic interaction between society and the state, a vital foundation for long-term political stability. The direct consequences are evident in the recurrent civil wars, coups and political instability that have plagued African nations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, leaving a legacy of autocratic institutions dominated by military or ethnic elites. In contrast, Europe itself was not immune to internal strife and political fragmentation during its own political development. The continent endured centuries of religious conflicts and devastating wars, such as the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century and the two world wars in the 20th century, before forging formulas for political and social consensus, including constitutional democracy and the rule of law. The crucial distinction, however, lies in Europe's ability to undergo these transformations from within its own societal and political fabric, accumulating historical experiences organically. Africa, conversely, was deprived of this process by colonial subjugation imposed through force and domination, rather than internal interaction or social and political negotiation. This distortion warped the paths of state-building, leading to the reproduction of oppressive structures post-independence, often under national guises but with fundamentally colonial tools. Although development aid is typically not classified as reparations, for the purpose of Mo Ibrahim's argument, let us regard it as such. Astronomical figures In 1999, the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission called for the West to pay $777-trillion, a figure equivalent to approximately $1.34-quadrillion in 2023. More recently, the Brattle Group, an international consultancy firm, quantified the cost of the transatlantic chattel slavery at $100-trillion to $131-trillion. Taking the most conservative estimate of $100-trillion as the cost of colonialism in Africa, the scale of redress required is astronomical. If external partners were to pay the entire AU annual budget of $650-million, it would take approximately 153,000 years to compensate for the colonial plundering. Even if we assume that all developmental and humanitarian aid to Africa, currently estimated at a maximum of $3.5-billion annually (disregarding the political and economic conditionalities that often ensure donors gain $2.15 for every $1 disbursed in aid) constitutes reparations, Europe would still need more than 28,500 years of sustained payments to compensate for the $100-trillion in colonial losses, assuming no inflation or interest. It's possible — only just possible — that the clamour kicked up by Ibrahim springs from the AU's move to designate 2025 the 'Year of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations'. No one genuinely expects Europe, or any former colonial power, to cough up reparations that could ever truly right the wrongs of colonialism's devastation. Those wounds run too deep, carved by centuries of fire, bullets, and blood — no sum could balance that ledger. Yet, the claims stand, unyielding, timeless and just. However, the mere whisper of reparations seems enough to rattle European investors, and Europe-based investors especially, as the global economy stumbles. Their reflex? To polish the meagre scraps of aid they toss our way, dressing them up as some grand atonement for a past they'd rather we forget. Ibrahim's comments were made in dialogue during his good governance event with the departing chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, whose tenure from March 2017 to February 2025 was marked by significant controversy. While Ibrahim is keen to criticise the AU's sources of funding, he overlooked the widespread characterisation of his guest as a ' disaster ' for the organisation. AU staff accused Faki of corruption, cronyism and leadership failures, alleging a mafia-style cartel that operates with impunity within the AU. The greater problem for the AU, and the source of its ineffectiveness, lies not solely in its funding sources but fundamentally in the calibre of leadership exemplified by politicians like Faki. Profoundly problematic Perhaps Ibrahim was correct in one regard: his derision of the slogan 'African solutions for African problems'. This slogan is, indeed, profoundly problematic. Africa does not suffer from 'African problems' with a specific racial nationality or phenotypic characteristic. Rather, it confronts political, economic and social challenges within the context of an ongoing geopolitical exploitation — another reality that the 'wise men' convening in Marrakesh often conveniently avoid acknowledging, lest it affect their direct economic interests and investments. The Emirati role in the Sudanese conflict serves as a prominent case in point. Former colonisers, those whom Ibrahim disdains calling such, played a significant role in creating these problems. These problems require solutions commensurate with their nature: political, economic and social solutions made by policies tailored to address them. Crafting these solutions demands not merely financial resources but also the genuine exchange of expertise and true investment in developing Africa's human capital to forge them. There is no foreseeable future where European nations can simply be just 'partners' free from the shadow of their colonial history. African nations need to continue reminding Europe of its ongoing benefits of this historical exploitation. This historical reality may come as something of a disappointment to Ibrahim, but historical amnesia is a luxury only the beneficiaries can afford. The tangible and enduring impact of colonialism on our lived present is a stark reality, not merely an abstraction to be dismissed with Ibrahim's sarcasm. The past is not merely prologue; it is an active force shaping the present and demanding a more nuanced and historically informed understanding of Africa's path forward. DM
Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Rethinking African urbanisation and putting urban transition on the G20 agenda
The Urban20 (U20) is a G20 engagement group, and the only one where subnational government is represented. Its function is to prepare a communique of recommendations on inclusive economic development, climate resilient infrastructure and planning, and urban management issues for the president of the G20. The U20 is co-hosted by the Cities of Tshwane and Johannesburg, which will host a second U20 Summit in mid-September. The first convening took place in June in Pretoria and a second one is planned for 12-14 September 2025 in Johannesburg. Fittingly, the host cities have decided to focus the agenda of the U20 meetings on the challenges and opportunities that African cities face amid rapid urbanisation — inadequate infrastructure investment, limited political and fiscal devolution, and restless young people unwilling to accept having no voice in the governance of their cities and neighbourhoods. Urban development pressures The addition of the African Union (AU) as a full member of the G20 took place in 2023 during the Indian presidency, but politically it is South Africa's presidency this year that will be judged on the extent to which it can focus the attention of G20 members on the urgent development pressures facing the African continent. A concept paper prepared for the Assembly of African Mayors in June highlighted key urban imperatives that the AU's membership brings into the U20 debates. The hope is that the clarity of the African urban focus will infuse the broader G20 agenda. Greater clarity on the spatial, territorial and urban dimension of macro-development policymaking across the AU and the G20 is the primary purpose of the U20. It is deeply significant that the voices of African mayors are being heard, given that for too long the urban question has been a low policy priority. The AU clarified its agenda for advancing sustainable urbanism across Africa in the declaration of the inaugural African Urban Forum hosted by the Ethiopian government in September 2024. The declaration asserts the imperative to 'establish national urban forums for the implementation of integrated and inclusive national urban policies that underpin the national territorial plan in each member state to address urban planning and inequalities, consequences of climate change, and financing needs for the development and management of cities and towns, or the development of such policies where they do not yet exist'. This political mouthful is less significant for its content than for its tone. There is, for the first time, an insistence that inclusive mechanisms for debating national urban policy priorities are essential, alongside the notion of a 'territorial' plan that spells out the spatial imperatives of national infrastructure investments. Still, most African countries do not have these mechanisms in place, undermining the role of city governments in driving national development objectives such as structural economic transformation and climate resilience. State hostility, squandered opportunities In the wake of the African Urban Forum, the AU is putting forward a strong case for focusing on urban development as central to structural economic transformation, but in truth, the G20 policy framing will have to combat the political inertia, and at times hostility of AU member states towards urbanisation. There is a history to these regressive positions. In 2008, I attended the High-level Symposium as part of the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank in Maputo. The event was convened under the theme, Fostering Shared Growth: Urbanisation, Inequality and Poverty in Africa. During the session, Zimbabwe's minister of finance addressed the packed auditorium and extolled the virtues of forced removals of communities and markets in inner city Harare during Operation Murambatsvina, circa 2005. Shockingly, he got a standing ovation from the other African leaders in attendance. Using force to displace the urban poor was often the only policy tool in a broader context where governments were in denial about the reality of urbanisation and reluctant to empower city governments to proactively harness the demographic transition for economic development and cultural purposes. Consequently, enormous economic and social development opportunities were squandered. Greater AU attention For more than a decade, the AU has been giving far greater attention to the potential of cities and empowering local governance. The African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development sets the stage for the empowerment of subnational governments. However, devolution has simply not been a priority for most AU members, evidenced in the fact that only nine countries have ratified the Charter's adoption on 27 June 2014. South Africa is one of them. The political economy of this reluctance is not hard to fathom when you consider that opposition political parties tend to first get a foothold in cities, and opposition to government is often concentrated in poorer, more politically active city neighbourhoods, as we witnessed recently with uprisings in Nairobi and Maputo. Africa Urban Forum Urban hesitancy may be waning as the AU sharpens the spatial focus of its developmental aspirations. In September 2024, a decent political clearing was finally created by the AU with the hosting of the inaugural Africa Urban Forum. A palpable sense of urgency pervaded the event rooted in an acknowledgement that the continent had lost an enormous amount of time to understand and optimise the inevitable urbanisation transition. The AU, in its positioning in the G20, is now heeding leading African economist, Carlos Lopes, who argues that urbanisation is an essential dynamic that can be 'the central axis of Africa's structural transformation — an opportunity to reorganise economies, multiply productivity, and rewire the foundations of development'. It is against Africa's belated but welcome embrace of the urban challenge that we must evaluate the significance of the work of the U20 Engagement Group during the South African presidency of the G20. The priority topics will include inclusive economic growth, municipal finance, social inclusion and equity, and innovation in service delivery. Hopefully, these will not be empty signifiers in a world of excess jargon, but a true political reckoning with the price we will pay for continuing to neglect our cities, and most importantly, our citizens. DM
Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
US participation in G20 Summit in Johannesburg ‘remains very important and critical', says Lamola
Most observers and analysts seem less optimistic than Lamola that the Trump administration can be kept fully on board the G20. They fear that if Trump does attend the summit, he won't sign the declaration. The South African government is still pinning its hopes on full US participation at the G20 Summit, despite intermittent attendance of US officials in the meetings preparing for the summit in Johannesburg in November. International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola said on Thursday that the US participation 'remains very critical and important' as the G20 is a consensus-based organisation and all of its members had to agree on the outcome document from the summit. The US does 'participate … fully in the finance track. And in the sherpa track, not fully; and recently, not at all,' Lamola replied to questions at a press conference in Cape Town. He added that the US had sent an apology for its sherpa not attending last week's third sherpa meeting at Sun City. Lamola's spokesperson, Chrispin Phiri, told Daily Maverick that the reason the US gave was that its sherpa was attending the Nato summit that was taking place in The Hague at the same time. Lamola said that as the G20 had to adopt its summit declaration by consensus, it needed the US vote. 'We continue to call … on the US as a member country of the G20 … to participate and make a contribution,' he said. 'Their participation remains very critical and important.' Lamola has just returned from attending the International Conference on Financing for Development in Spain, which adopted a declaration on increased financing for development, even though there was no consensus because the US didn't support it. Lamola said the difference between this and the G20 Summit was that the Financing for Development conference was not a consensus-based forum. Earlier on Thursday, Alvin Botes, the deputy minister of international relations and cooperation, said: 'It's imperative for the success of the G20 that the US, as the incoming presidency, are part of the November summit.' He appeared to be suggesting it would be critical for the US to attend the November summit to provide some continuity in the G20 agenda. He noted that SA was the last of a group of developing countries — after Indonesia, India and Brazil — that had been chairing the G20 in succession and which together had driven a developmental agenda. He suggested the US's attendance or non-attendance at the Johannesburg summit would define the US outlook for the next few years — through its presidency next year and beyond, when it is part of the troika of present, past and future presidents that helps manage the G20. He echoed Lamola in saying that the US had participated in the finance track, which was encouraging. 'But we require them to engage more deeply in the shepa track, and that is a critical issue.' The sherpa track deals with all G20 issues other than financial ones. Botes was the keynote speaker at a seminar on financial inclusion organised by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation. Less than wholehearted Some analysts have pointed out that the US attendance even at finance track meetings has been less than wholehearted. Though the Federal Reserve has attended most meetings, the US Treasury's participation has been patchy. The analysts said it would be interesting to see if the US Treasury attends the meeting of the deputy finance ministers and central bank governors in the week after next. Most observers and analysts seem less optimistic than Lamola and Botes that the Trump administration can be kept fully on board the G20. They fear that if Trump does attend the summit, he won't sign the declaration. This seems a logical prediction, given that SA's G20 themes of equality, inclusiveness and sustainability seem diametrically opposed to Trump's philosophy, as his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, pointed out earlier this year when he refused to attend a G20 foreign ministers meeting. If the US doesn't sign the declaration, that would force SA to either drastically dilute it to get the US in or issue a 'chairperson's statement' on the summit rather than a consensus declaration, diluting the impact of any decisions made. A foreign diplomatic source told Daily Maverick, 'We cannot stop working, or adopt the agenda to the US needs. Thus, we — SA and almost everyone else — want to continue the work, and that is happening. I think the ultimate loser of this strategy is the US. 'They also withdrew from the Financing for Development process in the 11th hour. If you are not around the table, you do not have a voice … the rest of the world moves on.' Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, the national director of the SAIIA, said at the financial inclusion seminar that even if SA could not get all that it wanted at the summit, 'What is critical is to make sure that these things are on the agenda, because they can be picked up at another time. 'We have a responsibility to drive some of these issues forward, to put some interesting ideas and perspectives on to the table and then work towards seeing them actualised, even if they do not actualise by the 30th of November [the summit date].' SA's agenda includes debt relief, reducing the cost of capital for developing countries and providing more financing for climate adaptation and disaster relief. DM
