Thobile Jiwulane

With the US Presidential Election campaign in full swing and both candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump having chosen their running mates, it’s all systems go for the all-important American national polls.

But the question in everybody’s mouth in Africa, is will either Harris or Trump care about Africa or not? This as in their rhetoric, neither candidate has said a word about Africa so far. But they can be given the benefit of doubt since it’s still three months to go to the November 5 election. Perhaps they may say something about the continent during their respective campaign trails during the remaining period.

But historically, Africa plays second fiddle in the America foreign policy regardless of who is in the White House. Whether it’s the Republicans or the Democrats in the driving seat, what matters to the US presidents was the Middle East particularly the US overly protection of Israel against its Arab neighbours and any other foreign threat to Tel Aviv in the region and how to maintain the US’ own influence on the region’s oil fields.

But more significantly and more of a priority was to guard for its interests against China in the entire East and Russian activities on vulnerable Eastern European countries such as Ukraine and several other former Soviet republics that were now part of the European Union. Since US military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 1990s, the US military is the busiest in the world with military activities in almost all continents and its military bases set up in almost every strategic corner of the globe in pursuit of Washington’s hegemonic interests. In all this, their eyeballs are set on Russia and China as the biggest threats to the US hegemony.

In that case, Africa always remained at the bottom of the US agenda. Not that there was any big power that cared much about Africa except when their own interests have to be pursued which makes the US not the only culprit in neglecting Africa. Save for assisting liberation struggles against colonial oppression in parts of Africa, Russia, then as Soviet Union, has no tangible history of economic aid to the continent while China, while it historically had assisted in African development for generations, it had always been for its own economic benefit. This applies whether it’s China’s early mining exploration and extraction, or railway constructions, or current bridge and road initiatives in Africa. However, what makes both Russia and China the darlings of Africa, was the fact that neither had imperial objectives in the continent.

However, Africa itself is not known for developing itself other than to carry a begging bowl for aid from the West and its financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and kow-towing to World Trade Organisation policy restrictions, making them vulnerable to manipulation and being made tools to pursue Western interests against its rival big powers. Some leaders like Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo would take it further even to request the US to take action to stop Russian influence in West Africa especially the Sahel region where the Russian-funded private mercenary army, Wagner Group, were invited to replace French troops in countries like Mali. The Russian influence had spread into fellow junta-governed Niger and Burkina Faso while the West, particularly France and US, were kicked out of those countries in the recent past.

President Joe Biden’s initial moves a few months after his inauguration in January 2021, was to interact with Africa and even addressed the African Union heads of state gathering on a virtual platform promising strong cooperation with the continent. In South Africa Biden promised to fund the country’s renewable energy programmes. But nothing much had come out of that during his first and now last term in the Oval Office.

Perhaps Harris, as his Vice President would see these through if she managed to beat Trump in November, as some believe. If she won this year and served her own two presidential terms successfully subsequently, it would have been her third term in the Presidency first as VP and then as President in her own right. That would give Harris ample time to cover Biden’s lost ground on Africa. But all that depends on developments towards November 5 and on the electoral outcome itself.

Africa, particularly South Africa, expected more from Biden than he was able to deliver in his single term in office. As a vociferous campaigner against white South Africa’s apartheid policies during his time as Senator, he was regarded as the blacks’ ally in Congress in addition to the anti-apartheid American black movement that supported the country’s oppressed black majority throughout. Post apartheid, South Africans expected to see stronger political and trade relations with the US that went beyond the pro-Africa concessionary trade-based programme, Africa’s Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), something that former US Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks promised to ensure it was realised when she arrived after her very late-despatching to Pretoria by Trump.

But with Harris likely to do the initially unthinkable – to beat Trump in November with her popularity growing, there is hope not just for South Africa but Africa as a whole. However, Africa’s real hope would be when she actually started to pronounce clearly about her plans for the continent during her campaign. But can you trust a democrat in as White House as is one of two sides of the same coin as the GOP when it comes to the US foreign policy game?

As for Trump, as indicated, his obsession was not with Africa hence he sent his ambassador very late in 2019, a year before the end of his term. This notwithstanding the fact that the appointment of an ambassador by Washington could also be delayed by the long US protocol that included Congress approval.  Biden’s envoy, Reuben E. Brigety II, entered South Africa on a controversial note when he got embroiled in his claim that South Africa was arming Russia in its war with Ukraine and that a Russian ship, Lady R, was seen loading weapons at a Cape Town harbour destined for Russia. This turned out to be untrue at least according to the South African authorities, prompting the then ruling ANC’s Left ally, South African Communist Party, calling for Brigety to be sent home. But Biden and President Cyril Ramaphosa kissed and made up and the Ambassador continued with business as usual.

Instead of worrying about Africa, during his reign Trump kept a Hawkish eye on China and in pursuing his ‘American first’ trade policy including strict border restrictions with Mexico while keeping some “friendly relationship” with Vladimir Putin. Under him, any other low-power country outside the US interest was nothing but, as he put it, a “Shit-hole”. For some time, South Africa wasn’t sure if it was part of that description or not. This was exacerbated when Trump co-operated with some of South Africa’s white right-wing elements who fed his administration with information about white farm killings and allegations that blacks planned to take over white land in terms of the now-abandoned land expropriation without compensation which was designed to restore land to the landless black majority who lost their ancestral land during the colonial time in the early 20th century. But, besides his sympathies with the tiny right-wing fringe, it’s only fair to say that the Trump Administration was not hostile towards South Africa but Africa as whole was not on top of Trump’s agenda. The Democrats, whether it was under Barack Obama or Biden, had not demonstrated any particular care for Africa except to embark on actions to counter Russian and Chinese moves on the continent.

What is important for any Administration to be ushered into the White House in January 2025 to do, is to keep in mind that Africa deserves better, otherwise the US must stop blaming the continent for moving towards China and Russia.