On July 9, United States President Donald Trump opened a three-day mini summit on the White Home with the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – by subjecting his distinguished company to a fastidiously staged public humiliation.
This was not the plan – or at the least, not the half the general public was meant to see.
A White Home official claimed on July 3 that “President Trump believes that African nations supply unimaginable business alternatives which profit each the American individuals and our African companions.”
Whether or not by coincidence or calculated design, the assembly befell on the identical day the Trump administration escalated its commerce battle, slapping new tariffs on eight nations, together with the North African nations of Libya and Algeria. It was a telling distinction: At the same time as Trump claimed to be “strengthening ties with Africa”, his administration was penalising African nations. The optics revealed the incoherence – or maybe the honesty – of Trump’s Africa coverage, the place partnership is conditional and infrequently indistinguishable from punishment.
Trump opened the summit with a four-minute speech wherein he claimed the 5 invited leaders have been representing your complete African continent. By no means thoughts that their nations barely register in US-Africa commerce figures; what mattered was the gold, oil, and minerals buried beneath their soil. He thanked “these nice leaders… all from very vibrant locations with very priceless land, nice minerals, nice oil deposits, and fantastic individuals”.
He then introduced that the US was “shifting from AID to commerce” as a result of “this might be far more practical and sustainable and useful than anything that we may very well be doing collectively.”
At that second, the phantasm of diplomacy collapsed, and the true nature of the assembly was revealed. Trump shifted from statesman to showman, not merely internet hosting however asserting management. The summit shortly descended right into a cringe-inducing show, the place Africa was offered not as a continent of sovereign nations however as a wealthy expanse of assets, fronted by compliant leaders performing for the cameras. This was not a dialogue however a show of domination: A stage-managed manufacturing wherein Trump scripted the scene and African heads of state have been solid in subordinate roles.
Trump was in his component, orchestrating the occasion like a puppet grasp, directing every African visitor to play his half and reply favourably. He “invited” (in impact, instructed) them to make “just a few feedback to the media” in what grew to become a choreographed present of deference.
President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania led the way in which, each bodily and symbolically, by praising Trump’s “dedication” to Africa. The declare was as deceptive because it was surreal, given Washington’s latest assist cuts, punitive tariffs, and tightened visa restrictions on African nations.
In a single particularly embarrassing second, Ghazouani described Trump because the world’s high peacemaker – crediting him, amongst different issues, with stopping “the battle between Iran and Israel”. This reward got here with no point out of the US’s continued navy and diplomatic assist for Israel’s battle on Gaza, which the African Union has firmly condemned. The silence amounted to complicity, a calculated erasure of Palestinian struggling for the sake of American favour.
Maybe conscious of the tariffs looming over his personal nation, Ghazouani, who served as AU Chair in 2024, slipped into the position of a prepared supplicant. He all however invited Trump to use Mauritania’s uncommon minerals, praised him and declared him a peacemaker whereas ignoring the massacres of tens of hundreds of innocents in Gaza made attainable by the very weapons Trump supplies.
This tone would outline your complete sit-down. One after the other, the African leaders supplied Trump glowing reward and entry to their nations’ pure assets – a disturbing reminder of how simply energy can script compliance.
Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye even requested Trump to construct a golf course in his nation. Trump declined, opting as a substitute to go with Faye’s youthful look. Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema talked of “win-win partnerships” with the US, however obtained solely a lukewarm response.
What did seize Trump’s consideration was the English fluency of Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai. Ignoring the content material of Boakai’s remarks, Trump marvelled at his “stunning” English and requested, “The place did you study to talk so fantastically? The place have been you educated? The place? In Liberia?”
That Trump appeared unaware English is Liberia’s official language, and has been since its founding in 1822 as a haven for freed American slaves, was maybe much less stunning than the colonial tone of his query. His astonishment that an African president may converse English effectively betrayed a deeply racist, imperial mindset.
It was not an remoted slip. At a White Home peace ceremony on June 29 involving the DRC and Rwanda, Trump publicly commented on the looks of Angolan journalist and White Home correspondent Hariana Veras, telling her, “You’re stunning – and you might be stunning inside.”
Whether or not or not Veras is “stunning” is completely inappropriate. Trump’s behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional, decreasing a revered journalist to her appears to be like in the course of a diplomatic milestone. The sexualisation of Black girls – treating them as vessels of white male need relatively than mental equals – was central to each the transatlantic slave commerce and European colonisation. Trump’s remark prolonged that legacy into the current.
Likewise, his shock at Boakai’s English suits a protracted imperial sample. Africans who “grasp” the coloniser’s language are sometimes seen not as complicated, multilingual intellectuals, however as subordinates who’ve absorbed the dominant tradition. They’re rewarded for proximity to whiteness, not for mind or independence.
Trump’s remarks revealed his perception that articulate and visually interesting Africans are an anomaly, a novelty deserving momentary admiration. By decreasing each Boakai and Veras to aesthetic curiosities, he erased their company, dismissed their achievements, and gratified his colonial ego.
Greater than something, Trump’s feedback on Boakai mirrored his deeper indifference to Africa. They stripped away any phantasm that this summit was about real partnership.
Distinction this with the US-Africa Leaders Summit held by President Joe Biden in December 2022. That occasion welcomed greater than 40 African heads of state, in addition to the African Union, civil society, and personal sector leaders. It prioritised peer-to-peer dialogue and the AU’s Agenda 2063 – a far cry from Trump’s choreographed spectacle.
How the Trump administration concluded that 5 males may characterize your complete continent stays baffling, except, in fact, this wasn’t about illustration in any respect, however management. Trump didn’t need engagement; he needed efficiency. And sadly, his company obliged.
In distinction to the tightly managed assembly Trump held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 8, the lunch with African leaders resembled a chaotic, tone-deaf sideshow.
Faye was particularly disappointing. He got here to energy on the again of an anti-imperialist platform, pledging to interrupt with neocolonial politics and restore African dignity. But on the White Home, he bent the knee to probably the most brazen imperialist of all of them. Just like the others, he did not problem Trump, to claim equality, or to defend the sovereignty he so publicly champions at dwelling.
In a second when African leaders had the possibility to push again in opposition to a resurgent colonial mindset, they as a substitute bowed – giving Trump area to revive a Sixteenth-century fantasy of Western mastery.
For this, he supplied a reward: He may not impose new tariffs on their nations, he mentioned, “as a result of they’re associates of mine now”.
Trump, the “grasp”, triumphed.
All of the Africans needed to do was bow at his ft.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
