China's Malign Influence in Africa and US Counter Strategy

 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on 4 June 2025 titled "China's Malign Influence in Africa."  The senior Africa Bureau official in the State Department, Troy Fitrell, provided the testimony.

Responding to the title of the hearing, Fitrell denounced Beijing's assertive, government-backed strategies to capture African market share.  He said China's strategy for economic dominance in Africa relies on a centralized, state-directed, and nationally resourced approach to dominating global markets and strategic supply chains.

Fitrell devoted most of his prepared testimony to the Trump administration's strategy for Africa, which will focus on investment-led and trade-driven growth.  It will prioritize robust commercial engagement, recognizing and treating African nations as equal partners in trade and investment.  He then identified six targeted actions:

1.  Making commercial diplomacy a core priority across US embassies;

2.  Promoting private-sector-identified market reforms with African governments;

3.  Implementing high-quality infrastructure projects;

4.  Sending commercial diplomacy missions with private sector representatives;

5.  Connecting export-ready US companies with African opportunities; and

6.  Reforming US trade and financing tools to better compete with China's swift and risk-tolerant financing model.  

Fitrell rightly concludes that "the strategy's success relies on U.S. companies expanding into new markets and African partners enabling environments for transparent and lasting commerce."

Comment:  As someone who has been following African affairs since the early 1960s, including 37 years in the State Department and most of it in the Africa Bureau, there is nothing new about this strategy except perhaps the emphasis being put on it by the Trump administration.  But other administrations, especially the Reagan administration, also gave commercial diplomacy a high priority.  All of them were disappointed with the results in Africa.  In the final analysis, the strategy is highly dependent on the willingness of the American private sector to engage in Africa.  Private sector enthusiasm will be determined not only by the priority given to it by the Trump administration, but the tangible incentives offered by the US government.  This is where China has a big advantage.

Is the US government prepared to provide sufficient on the ground staffing at all embassies in Africa?  Will it increase resources for the US Export-Import Bank, US International Development Finance Corporation, and Millennium Challege Corporation?  Will high level Trump administration officials lead trade and investment missions to Africa?  If the response to all of these questions is affirmative, the strategy might make a difference.

But it does not help when the announcement of the Africa commercial strategy is immediately followed by a full or partial ban on travel to the United States by 10 African countries.  Even if they are not among the most important trade and investment prospects, it sends the wrong message to all of Africa that America is not really open for business.    

Former USAID Leaders Under Republican and Democratic Presidents Oppose Dismantling Organization

 CNN posted on 5 February 2025 an article titled "Republican and Democratic Former USAID Leaders Speak Out against Trump's Attempts to Dismantle Agency" by Jennifer Hansler.

Five former leaders of the US Agency for International Development have spoken out against the Trump administration's attempts to dismantle the humanitarian agency and called on Congress "to swiftly protect the Agency's statutory role."  

The five former administrators are Samantha Power (Biden administration), Gayle Smith (Obama administration), Andrew Natsios (George W. Bush administration), Brian Atwood (Clinton administration), and Peter McPherson (Reagan administration).

Comment:  A notable absentee from this list is Mark Green, who served as USAID administrator during the first Trump administration.  

Podcast on US Elections, Africa Policy, and Horn of Africa

 Tigrai Press posted on 28 July 2024 a one-hour podcast with me hosted by Bisrat Kebede.  The conversation focuses initially on the election campaign between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, implications of the election for Africa policy, and Project 2025.  The remainder of the podcast deals with many of the ongoing issues in the Horn of Africa.   

Famine in Ethiopia: 1983-1985

 The Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training recently posted an oral history piece titled "Strong-arming Other Donors: Part of USAID's Response to Famine in Ethiopia." 

This is an interview with former USAID Administrator Peter McPherson on the horrific Ethiopian famine in 1983-85.  

Sudan Oral History: President Nimeiry Overthrown While Visiting President Reagan

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training just posted an oral history titled "When the Sudanese Autocrat Met President Reagan and Lost His Job" with William Pierce, U.S. embassy Khartoum political officer at the time.

This is a first hand account of the overthrow in 1985 of Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry while he was in the United States on a visit with President Ronald Reagan. William Pierce offers background to this development.

Sudan: Oral History When President Nimeiry Met President Reagan and Lost His Job

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training at the Foreign Service Institute just published an interesting account titled "When the Sudanese Autocrat Met President Reagan and Lost his Job" based on an oral history by William Pierce, political officer at the U.S. embassy in Khartoum at the time.

President Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiry had departed Khartoum for the United States for a meeting with President Ronald Reagan.  Ambassador Hume Horan had also gone to Washington to participate in the meeting.  I was charge d'affaires in Khartoum in the absence of the ambassador.  Nimeiry was removed from power during his absence and did not return to Sudan until many years later.