Was Trump's Africa summit just outsourcing America's immigration problem?
United States (US) President Donald Trump hosted a mini-summit with five African leaders in the White House last week. It was surprising that he met with African leaders at all, given his stance towards the continent. His choice of countries was also interesting — why Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Gabon?
Trump told the delegates his administration was 'committed to strengthening our friendships in Africa through economic development efforts that benefit both the US and our partners. And we're shifting from aid to trade,' noting that he had just scrapped the US Agency for International Development (USAid).
As to the five countries in attendance, he said they all had 'great land, great minerals, oil deposits', and that he wanted to discuss security. Trump encouraged the leaders to invest more in defence and to 'keep pursuing the fight against terrorism, which is a big problem in Africa'.
'Immigration will also be on the agenda, and I hope we can bring down the high rates of people overstaying visas, and also make progress on the Safe Third Country Agreements.'
The supposed wealth of these five countries in critical minerals has been offered as the main reason for their invitation. Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani said his country had 'minerals, rare earths, rare minerals', including manganese, uranium and probably lithium, and was the second-largest African iron ore producer.
Liberian President Joseph Boakai also said his country had many minerals and asked for US help in surveying them. Trump added an unintentional comic note by commending Boakai for his 'beautiful English'. He asked where Boakai had learnt to speak it — seemingly unaware that English is Liberia's official language. The country was, after all, founded in the 19th century by free slaves from the US.
Critical minerals
Gabon's President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema also stressed that his country had oil and gas and critical minerals, including manganese, and invited the US to invest in processing it locally, including building the necessary electricity capacity. He said that if the US did not invest, others would. And he appealed to Trump to help Gabon stop maritime piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye noted that the US was conducting a geological survey in Senegal to help assess the potential of minerals. He added that thanks to US companies, Senegal had discovered oil and about 950 billion cubic metres of gas.
So critical and other minerals, and oil and gas, were clearly a factor in the choice of the five. So was security in a chronically insecure region. Some believe the US is looking for countries to host its military bases after Niger's junta forced out the US hub at Agadez.
Trump also boasted about the recent US-brokered peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. Most of the African leaders thanked him for this, urging him to fulfil his intention to likewise broker peace in Sudan and Libya.
But was immigration to the US — a key domestic issue for Trump — the real heart of the matter? The Wall Street Journal reported that before the summit, the US administration sent the five countries requests to accept deportees from the US whose home countries refused them or were slow to take them back.
According to an internal document seen by The Wall Street Journal, the African countries would have to agree not to return transferred asylum seekers 'to their home country or country of former habitual residence until a final decision has been made' on their claims for asylum in the US.
This arrangement appears similar to that between the former Conservative United Kingdom (UK) government and Rwanda, but which was scrapped last year by the Labour government, which said the deal had not deterred migrants to the UK.
Reports say America previously tried to persuade Nigeria to accept an agreement with Venezuelan deportees — but Abuja refused. This might suggest that Trump is turning to smaller, perhaps more pliable, countries to try to persuade them to accept asylum seekers or deportees.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that five men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen — convicted of crimes ranging from child rape to murder — had arrived in Eswatini on a Safe Third Country deportation flight from the US. On 4 July, the US deported eight men convicted of violent crimes to South Sudan.
It is unclear how the five African governments responded to Trump's request, and none mentioned it in the public part of the meeting.
Two overlapping goals
Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Research Officer Zenge Simakoloyi said Trump's summit seemed mainly to have two overlapping goals: to test the waters on processing asylum seekers offshore, and to diversify US critical mineral supply chains away from China. Nigeria's rejection of the Venezuelans suggested that externalising the US immigration problem would be difficult, he said.
According to Aimée-Noël Mbiyozo, ISS Migration Senior Research Consultant: 'There are no good precedents for outsourcing asylum processes.' She noted that the Australian effort to do so had cost at least A$1-billion annually since 2012, and had 'failed to achieve all its objectives, including stopping people smuggling'.
Simakoloyi noted that countering China in African trade and mineral access was a hallmark of US foreign policy in Africa, as evidenced by the Lobito Corridor carrying minerals from Zambia and the DRC to be exported from Angola. He suggested Senegal's President Faye could serve the US as a diplomatic bridge to the Sahel's juntas, as Senegal had established a rapport with Mali and Burkina Faso's military governments.
Trump's shift from aid to trade and investment in Africa is in principle a good idea, though the abrupt termination of aid has caused significant distress on the continent. (Unconfirmed reports this week suggest that Pepfar – the US programme against HIV/Aids — may be reinstated.)
But how the US trades and invests in Africa will be critical. As Gabon's Nguema told Trump: 'We also want our raw materials to be processed locally in our country so that we can create value and to create jobs for youth so that they stop dying. They are crossing the sea, the ocean to go to other countries.'
That would be a more constructive and ethical approach to relations than outsourcing the asylum process and dumping criminals from other countries onto Africa. DM
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