African diplomats – like diplomats everywhere – are adjusting to a new, less orderly, less predictable world. What should they do? My new book, How to be a Diplomat, offers some clues.
Two recent events have highlighted the diplomatic challenge.
The first African leaders invited for lunch with President Trump on 9 July were those from Guinea Bissau, Gabon, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal. With Liberia aside, these are not traditional American allies. The meeting, the result of intense lobbying by President Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea-Bissau, reportedly focussed on ‘commercial opportunities’. Trump made clear that the US was interested mainly in trading Africa’s minerals, and the African presidents (at least in the broadcast section) were suitably flattering despite Trump’s condescension – expressing his surprise at the Liberian President’s excellent English.
The lunch was also attended by Trump’s Africa envoy, Massad Boulos, father-in-law to his daughter Tiffany, who brokered a ‘peace deal’ between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in return for promised critical mineral deals between the US and DRC.
At the other end of the spectrum was Trump’s spectacular falling out with South Africa. He did not praise President Ramaphosa’s English when the latter came to the White House on 21 May, but took him to task over trumped-up charges of violence and intimidation against South Africa’s white minority. Despite Ramaphosa’s effective push-back at the meeting, his country has still been stung with 30% tariffs on exports to the US.
The messages are fairly clear.
First, it no longer makes any difference to the US whether a country is democratic or not – that has no influence on policy. USAID’s support for civil society has been scrapped along with everything else it did.
Second, the US is interested in deals – commercial or political, as long as there is a visible benefit to the US itself in terms of access to minerals or export markets for its goods. This is more or less how the colonial powers regarded their African colonies back in the day, and not that dissimilar to China’s approach: we don’t care who is in charge, just export us your raw materials and import our manufactures.
Third, Trump likes to exercise power, to support clients and take revenge on his critics, internationally as much as domestically. His approach is called ‘transactional’, but in relation to South Africa, it is clearly tainted by ideology – and not an attractive one at that.
Europe is also struggling to adjust to this new transactional world, while China is stepping up as the friend of the ‘Global South’ and championing a re-balanced multilateral system in which China and its friends take more power and ‘the West’ is put firmly in its weakened place. Middle powers, such as Turkey, India, Israel and the Gulf states, are keen to exploit the turbulence to extend their influence over neighbouring or client states through force, cash or trade.
For African presidents and diplomats, a new approach is needed. Appeals for equity or development will fall on deaf American ears.
For authoritarian governments in Africa, this is a moment of opportunity. Deliver the goods, whether that is gold, copper, oil, critical minerals or port concessions, and you will get the support you want. Corrupt profits are part of the package.
For democracies, however, it is a moment of peril. The rules, institutions and constraints of a multilateral system, even if far from ideal, helped to protect them. They are under increasing political pressure to keep their growing populations happy, even as the global economy is becoming more skewed against them and jobs are ever harder to create. Financial meltdowns could easily multiply, paving the way for disgruntled youth or militaries to mount takeovers of the state.
In a purely transactional world, Africa’s position is weak. Separately, African economies are small, their militaries weak, and their bargaining power limited – easy pray for bigger powers offering protection. Thinking you can play one side off against the other rarely works. So, as I have argued before, the rational response is greater unity, enabling Africa to speak with the full weight of its population. Their voice at the UN can still be loud, if they can help the UN retain its global role. Outside powers, however prefer division, as both Sudan and ECOWAS have found to their cost and that of their peoples.
Are there then leaders in Africa who, in this time of trial, are willing to stand up and defend African unity through the implementation of the AfCFTA, the operation of the peace and security architecture, through keeping a united stance on climate change despite the US and Chinese obstruction?
Only time will tell whether the crisis promotes African unity, or whether Africa ends up being pulled apart – as it was 150 years ago. This time, at least, the choice is in African hands.
Nicholas Westcott is Professor of Practice in Diplomacy at SOAS University of London and a former diplomat. His book ‘How to be a Diplomat’ is published this month by Routledge.
