The United States under President Donald Trump has said that it is shifting its engagement with the African continent to a policy his administration calls “trade, not aid.”
And while the “not aid” part of this is clear — the U.S. Agency for International Development has been dismantled, after all — how exactly the “trade” part will work is murkier. The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, a development agency which provided large-scale grants to support economic growth and reduce poverty, has been gutted; tariffs are mounting globally; and the U.S.’s flagship Africa trade policy — the African Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA, which offers duty-free, quota-free access for eligible exporters — is set to expire next month, with little sign of renewal.
The impacts are already visible: the most recent data shows U.S.-Africa trade dropping sharply, making the reality look more like neither trade nor aid.